High-phase-purity zinc-blende InN on r-plane sapphire substrate with controlled nitridation pretreatment

High-phase-purity zinc-blende (zb) InN thin film has been grown by plasma-assisted molecular-beam epitaxy on r-plane sapphire substrate pretreated with nitridation. X-ray diffraction analysis shows that the phase of the InN films changes from wurtzite (w) InN to a mixture of w-InN and zb-InN, to zb-InN with increasing nitridation time. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy reveals an ultrathin crystallized interlayer produced by substrate nitridation, which plays an important role in controlling the InN phase. Photoluminescence emission of zb-InN measured at 20 K shows a peak at a very low energy, 0.636 eV, and an absorption edge at similar to 0.62 eV is observed at 2 K, which is the lowest bandgap reported to date among the III-nitride semiconductors. (c) 2008 American Institute of Physics.