AACVD of Cu(3)N on Al(2)O(3) Using CuCl(2) and NH(3)

Cu(3)N has been grown on m-Al(2)O(3) by aerosol-assisted chemical vapor deposition using 0.1 M CuCl(2) in CH(3)CH(2)OH under an excess of NH(3) at 600 °C, which led to the deposition of Cu that was subsequently converted into Cu(3)N under NH(3): O(2) at 400 °C in a two-step process without exposure to the ambient. The reaction of CuCl(2) with an excess of NH(3) did not lead to the growth of Cu(3)N, which is different to the case of halide vapor phase epitaxy of III-V semiconductors. The Cu(3)N layers obtained in this way had an anti-ReO(3) cubic crystal structure with a lattice constant of 3.8 Å and were found to be persistently n-type, with a room temperature carrier density of n = 2 × 10(16) cm(−3) and mobility of µ(n) = 32 cm(2)/Vs. The surface depletion, calculated in the effective mass approximation, was found to extend over ~0.15 µm by considering a surface barrier height of ϕ(B) = 0.4 eV related to the formation of native Cu(2)O.