Defect Analysis of Boron Phosphide Thin Films and Sapphire Single Crystal Using Synchrotron X-ray Topography.

摘要

Boron phosphide is an ideal semiconductor material used for neutron detectors because of its superior material properties, such as wide band gap and large thermal neutron capture cross-section of 10B. Since bulk BP is not readily available for neutron detector application, BP thin films are mainly synthesized by chemical vapor deposition (CVD). Among all the feasible substrates for BP deposition, SiC stands out due to its small lattice mismatch (4.5%) with BP, however it is necessary to optimize the growth condition to synthesize high quality BP thin films on SiC. In chapter III, BP thin film samples deposited on 4H-SiC and 6H-SiC under different growth conditions are characterized, mainly using synchrotron X-ray topography and other techniques such as optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. The relationship between BP thin film crystal quality and substrate material and orientation and other growth conditions is investigated. It can be concluded from the experimental data that the crystal quality of BP thin films on 4H-SiC substrate is much better than that on 6H-SiC substrate. Besides, poor crystalline quality of substrate will likely degrade the crystalline quality of epitaxial thin films.;Sapphire single crystal has been widely used in high-technology industry because of its excellent combination between optical, electrical and mechanical properties. In this thesis, a-plane sapphire ribbon grown by Edge-defined Film-fed Growth method (EFG) is analyzed by characterizing the seed crystals used and the quality of as-grown ribbon, by reflection X-ray topography. Distributions and formation mechanisms of defects inside both the sapphire seed crystal and ribbon crystal are studied. Transmission topographs reveal the presence of two sets of slip bands that are nucleated from either edge, the distribution of which is symmetric in the used seed crystal and asymmetric in the pristine seed crystal. This phenomenon could be caused by the unstable growth condition. As in sapphire ribbon, reflection topographs reveal features that indicate interface instability and asymmetric columnar crystal growth near the ribbon shoulder, which eventually lead to polycrystallinity at bottom of the sapphire ribbon.