Formation of planar defects during the initial growth ofM-plane GaN on LiAlO2(100)

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

We have investigated by transmission electron microscopy the structure and morphology of hexagonal GaN on tetragonal LiAlO 2 (100) during the initial stages of growth. Nucleation layers are grown by molecular beam epitaxy. The ex-situ study of the three-dimensional GaN nucleation and island coalescence reveals that planar defects, which are developed in any M-plane GaN film, are the result of the specific substrate surface morphology, and are thus growth-induced and not caused by strain relief due to the lattice mismatch.