For the growth of an electrically pumped lasing nitride emitter, the development of the MOCVD equipment and the process are mutually dependent. Most important is the implementation of the rapid temperature changes that are required between the growth of the different layers of a device structure. Equally important is to provide a reaction chamber that develops a stable gas phase at all growth temperatures used in the process. In this paper we will give insight in the technology and the relationship between processes and equipment. The development of the reation chamber was supported by mathematical modeling that formed the basis for the selection of appropriate process parameters for growth of group-III nitrides. The modeling consists of the numerical solution of the Navier-Stokes equations coupled with heat transfer and mass transport of the chemical species. The modeling of radiative heat transfer takes into account the effect of changing surface radiative properties. These changes result from the coating of the reactor inner surfaces during the growth run. Coupled flow dynamics and chemistry including homogeneous and heterogeneous reactions play an important role for predicting growth rate distributions on the susceptor area. At the practically used high temperatures, group-III metalorganics turn out to be almost entirely decomposed and it is the mass transport of these decomposition products to the growing layer that is assumed to control the growth rate in accordance with experimental observations.AIXTRON GmbH
MOCVD Equipment for Recent Developments towards the Blue and Green Solid State Laser
