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A strategy for obtaining AlN heteroepitaxial films with high crystalline quality

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High-quality aluminium nitride (AlN) heteroepitaxial films are obtained by the controlled discretization and coalescence of columns using nanopatterned AlN/sapphire templates with regular hexagonal holes. The density of dislocation etch pits in the AlN heteroepitaxial films is reduced to approximately 104 cm–2, approaching the value of that in AlN bulk single crystals.

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Fig. 1: AlN growth on NPATs with regular hexagonal holes.

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This is a summary of: Wang, J. et al. Group-III nitride heteroepitaxial films approaching bulk-class quality. Nat. Mater. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-023-01573-6 (2023).

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A strategy for obtaining AlN heteroepitaxial films with high crystalline quality. Nat. Mater. 22, 816–817 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-023-01574-5

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