Thin-film heteroepitaxy by the formation of the dilatation dipole ensemble

Abstract

It is shown that in substantially anisotropic media, such as a crystal with cubic lattice symmetry, the analogous dilatation centers can strongly attract each other considerably decreasing the total elastic energy. Such attractive centers form stable objects of a new type, the elastic dilatation dipoles. By the example of heteroepitaxy of the film of silicon carbide SiC on a silicon substrate, the calculations of elastic energy of the system are performed. It is shown that the elastic energy can relax completely only due to the ensemble of dilatation dipoles. A new growth method of SiC on Si is suggested and implemented experimentally. In this method, the elastic energy relaxes due to the ensemble of elastic dilatation dipoles. It is shown experimentally that the heteroepitaxial SiC films grown do not contain cracks and lattice-misfit dislocations despite the tremendous difference in lattice parameters. Thick low-defect GaN and AlN layers are grown on the SiC/Si templates obtained. The laboratory model of the operating light-emitting diode is originally obtained based on these structures.