Thermal expansion of polycrystalline gallium nitride: an X-ray diffraction study

Gallium nitride is studied at ambient and nonambient temperatures by powder X-ray diffraction followed by Rietveld refinement of the structure. The structure is reported for the ambient temperature on the basis of laboratory data. The diffraction data collected using a synchrotron beam serve for derivation of the lattice parameter and thermal expansion dependencies on temperature. The variation of unit-cell size on temperature was studied in detail in a broad range 11 K