Gallium nitride (GaN) is an attractive materials platform for the pursuit of high-power, high-efficiency (opto-)electronic devices. Key to allowing this wide band gap material system to achieve its full potential is the availability of low-cost, large-area, high-crystal-quality native substrates. While important advances have been made to this effect, continued progress and breakthroughs are required to truly meet this objective.

The ammonothermal method, which utilizes supercritical ammonia to preferentially dissolve and crystalize GaN on a native seed, offers a true bulk crystal growth process to yield large, inexpensive GaN substrates. To further enhance the growth rate and quality of GaN, much still needs to be learned and gained from an improved understanding of the chemical processes and growth mechanisms occurring in the ammonothermal environment. A key challenge to achieving this, is the difficulty in obtaining in-situ information during growth of GaN due to the use of thick-walled autoclaves containing the corrosive environment at temperatures up to ~ 650 °C and pressures up to ~ 2500 atm.

This talk will present the progress made in our understanding of the underpinnings of the basic ammonothermal growth of GaN. Specifically, it will discuss advances made to allow us to understand the thermodynamic foundation of the solvent, for the first time. This is achieved by the creation and application of a new, simple equation of state for supercritical ammonia under ammonothermal conditions. Additionally, by combining this solvent knowledge with in-situ temperature, total system measurements, and GaN single crystal growth, various aspects of the crystal growth process and solute behaviors are elucidated and will be presented. Consequences towards our ability to enhance the growth rate of basic ammonothermal GaN will then be discussed.