Brittle-ductile relaxation kinetics of strained AlGaN/GaN heterostructures

We have directly measured the stress evolution during metal-organic chemical vapor deposition of AlGaN/GaN heterostructures on sapphire. In situ stress measurements were correlated with ex situ microstructural analysis to determine directly a critical thickness for cracking and the subsequent relaxation kinetics of tensile-strained AlxGa1−xN grown on GaN. Cracks appear to initiate the formation of misfit dislocations at the AlGaN/GaN interface, which account for the majority of the strain relaxation.