Liquid‐Metal Fabrication of Ultrathin Gallium Oxynitride Layers with Tunable Stoichiometry
Résumé
The synthesis of nanometer‐thick (≈3 nm) gallium oxynitride (GaO x N y ) layers with a variable stoichiometry is reported. The approach primarily exploits the liquid metal chemistry (LMC) technique and promises easier integration of 2D materials onto photonic devices compared to traditional top‐down and bottom‐up methods. The fabrication follows a two‐step process, involving first liquid metal‐based printing of a nanometer‐thick layer of gallium oxide (Ga 2 O 3 ), followed a plasma‐enhanced nitridation reaction. Control over nitridation parameters (plasma power, exposure time) allows adjustment of the GaO x N y layer's composition, granting access to compounds with distinct optical properties (e.g., a 20% index variation), as demonstrated by ellipsometry and density functional theory (DFT) simulations. DFT provides a microscopic understanding of the effect of the bond polarization and crystallinity on the optical properties of GaO x N y compounds. These findings expand the knowledge of ultrathin GaO x N y alloys, which are poorly studied with respect to their gallium nitride (GaN) and Ga 2 O 3 counterparts. They also represent an essential step toward integrating such 2D materials into photonic chips and offer new opportunities to improve the performance of hybrid optoelectronic devices.