Vacancy-rich silicon for use with a gallium nitride epitaxial layer

Abstract

A manufacturing process is described to evaluate and select raw semiconductor wafers in preparation for epitaxial layer formation. The manufacturing process first produces a single crystal ingot during which a seed pulling velocity and temperature gradient are closely controlled. The resulting ingot is vacancy-rich with relatively few self-interstitial defects. Selected wafers can advance to a high-temperature nitridation annealing operation that further reduces the number of interstitials while increasing the vacancies. Substrates characterized by a high vacancy density can then be used to optimize an epitaxial layer deposition process.