Atomistic study of GaN surface grown on Si(111)

GaN is directly grown on Si(111) by radio-frequency plasma-assisted molecular-beam epitaxy, and the surface is studied using in situ reflection high-energy electron diffraction (RHEED) and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). By optimizing the growth condition, well-defined surface reconstructions are observed in atomically-resolved STM images after the additional Ga deposition, indicating the uniform N-polarity of the grown film. We show that N-rich condition in the initial GaN growth and slightly Ga-rich condition in the subsequent growth are critical in order to achieve monopolar uniform GaN films.