OMVPE growth of the metastable III/V alloy GaAs_0.5Sb_0.5

Abstract

The two crystal growth parameters most likely to affect the occurrence of GaAs_0.5Sb_0.5 spinodal decomposition during organometallic vapor phase epitaxial (OMVPE) growth, substrate temperature and substrate orientation, were investigated in detail. The temperature range studied was the widest over which good morphology layers could be grown, from 550 to 680° C. The InP substrate orientations used were (100), (221) and (311). The growth process was found to be diffusion controlled at high temperatures, but to be controlled by surface kinetics at temperatures below approximately 620° C, depending on substrate orientation. Growth of high quality layers was found to be much easier between 570 and 640° C. In addition, the 77 K PL intensity is much stronger for layers grown in this temperature range. The minimum PL halfwidth at 77 K is 20 meV and at 8 K is 16 meV. The typical room temperature hole mobilities are 100 cm²/Vs with hole concentrations of 2 x 10¹⁷ cm^-3 in undoped material. The temperature dependence of mobility is consistent with enhanced alloy scattering. Surprisingly, the growth temperature has no significant effect on either PL halfwidth or hole mobility between 560 and 660° C. The single Raman line observed for the unannealed alloy is split after annealing into two lines corresponding to the GaAs-rich and GaSb-rich alloys on either side of the range of solid immiscibility. The spinodal decomposition apparently starts at the surface where the coherency strain, which stabilizes the single phase alloy, is smallest.