Tertiaybutyldimethylantimony for GaSb growth

Abstract

Antimony-containing alloys have the lowest energy bandgaps of the conventional III-V semiconductors. Organometallic vapor phase epitaxy (OMVPE) has proven to be an effective and convenient technique for the production of the antimony alloys, normally using trimethylantimony (TMSb) as the antimony source. However, TMSb has several problems: (a) it decomposes at relatively high temperatures due to the strong CH₃-Sb bond, and (b) its use results in carbon contamination from the active methyl radicals, especially for the growth of aluminum-containing alloys. Recently, tertiarybutyldimethylantimony (TBDMSb) has been successfully used to grow high quality InSb epitaxial layers at temperatures as low as 325°C with low V:III ratios. This paper reports the use of TBDMSb to grow GaSb layers at temperatures from 500° to 650°C. Group V:III ratios close to unity are required for good surface morphologies. The optimum V:III ratio decreases slightly as the growth temperature is lowered due to the incomplete decomposition of trimethylgallium (TMGa). The growth efficiency is about 1 × 10⁴ μm/mole, indicating that there are no significant parasitic reactions between TMGa and TBDMSb. The as-grown layers are p-type. The background carrier concentration is nearly independent of growth temperature. Low temperature (10K) photoluminescence (PL) intensities are also nearly independent of temperature in this range. The PL spectra consist of two peaks, a bound exciton peak at about 792 meV and a native acceptor complex (V_Ga, Ga_Sb) peak at about 775 meV. At every growth temperature, the ratio of the PL intensity of the bound exiton peak to the native acceptor peak is always higher for samples grown using optimum conditions. The results show that TBDMSb can be used for the OMVPE growth of antimony-containing materials over a wide range of growth temperature.