Semiconductors van der Waals epitaxy (vdWE), which provides an abrupt and weakly bound interface for heteroepitaxy, has the potential to revolutionize future electronics and photonics by providing a novel material integration method and flexibility to transfer between different material systems. Many substantial progresses have been made based on graphene covered single crystalline substrates, in which the potential of the substrate still plays important role. While, the vdWE growth of nitrides on amorphous substrates, such as glass, is even more desirable to explore semiconductor vdWE on arbitrary substrates. It will enrich the concept of semiconductor heteroepitaxy, and will also enable nondestructive transfer, which is highly desirable in the emerging large-area flexible display industry.

    In this work, we report the growth of high-quality GaN films on amorphous silica glass substrates by using nanorods assisted vdWE. The as-obtained GaN films exhibit the quasi-crystalline characteristic. The blue-LED fabricated on such a GaN film shows a record internal quantum efficiency (IQE) of 48.67%. Furthermore, a flexible inorganic light emitting device is demonstrated benefiting from the weak interfacial interaction. This work not only experimentally validates the growth of crystalline nitrides on amorphous substrates, but also provides a promising route to the monolithic integration of semiconductors for advanced electronics and photonics.