Measurement of zeta potential of Ga and N-face gallium nitride has been carried out as function of pH. Both the faces show negative zeta potential in the pH range 5.5-9. The Ga face has an isoelectric point at pH 5.5. The N-face shows higher negative zeta potential due to larger concentration of adsorbed oxygen. Zeta potential data clearly showed that H-terminated diamond seed solution at pH 8 will be optimal for the self assembly of a monolayer of diamond nanoparticles on the GaN surface. Subsequent growth of thin diamond films on GaN seeded with H-terminated diamond seeds produced fully coalesced films confirming a seeding density in excess of 1012 cm−2. This technique removes the requirement for a low thermal conduction seeding layer like silicon nitride on GaN.
@article{arxiv.1707.05410,
title = {Surface zeta potential and diamond seeding on gallium nitride films},
author = {Soumen Mandal and Evan L. H. Thomas and Callum Middleton and Laia Gines and James Griffiths and Menno Kappers and Rachel Oliver and David J. Wallis and Lucy E. Goff and Stephen A. Lynch and Martin Kuball and Oliver A. Williams},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1707.05410},
year = {2017}
}