Epitaxy of >7 μm Thick GaN Drift Layers on 150 mm Si(111) Substrates Realizing Vertical PN Diodes with 1200 V Breakdown Voltage

Metal‐organic chemical vapor deposition growth of vertical GaN PN structures on 6″ Si(111) substrates enabling a 1200 V breakdown voltage is demonstrated. Thanks to an optimized buffer structure utilizing island growth in an AlN/Al 0.1 Ga 0.9 N superlattice, the threading dislocation density is drastically reduced, and sufficient compressive stress is incorporated in active GaN layers to compensate for the thermal mismatch. Crack‐free PN structures with drift layer thicknesses up to 7.4 μm are realized with a threading dislocation density of ≈5 × 10 8 cm −2 and an absolute wafer bow <50 μm. Quasi‐vertical PN diodes reveal a linear increase in the breakdown voltage with the drift layer thickness with an average breakdown field of ≈1.6 MV cm −1 . Additionally, the leakage current is shown to decrease monotonically as the drift layer thickness increases. For a 7.4 μm thick drift layer with a net ionized donor concentration of 0.9 × 10 16 cm −3 , a high breakdown voltage of 1200 V, a low specific on‐resistance of 0.4 mΩ cm −2 , and a low leakage current of 10 −4 A cm −2 (at a reverse bias of 650 V) are obtained. These results demonstrate the great potential of cost‐effective vertical GaN‐on‐Si power devices operating in the kilovolt range.