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MBE growth of high quality AlInSb/GaSb compound buffer layers on GaAs substrates

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Abstract

The epitaxy properties of GaAs-based GaSb thin films were investigated under different growth conditions to identify suitable smooth areas on GaSb epilayer surface for growing high-quality AlInSb metamorphic buffers. The results showed notable reduction in threading dislocation densities (TDDs) and hillocks densities (HDs) of GaSb buffer layer when the temperature of substrates rising to Tc (surface reconstruction conversion temperature) + 110 °C and growth rate decreasing to 0.25 mono layer per second (ML/s). These conditions led to gradual changes in GaSb epilayer surface morphologies from tiny hillocks to near-parallel steps. The AlInSb/GaSb compound buffers were studied by employing five different structures of AlInSb metamorphic buffer layers grown on optimized GaSb layers, and then analyzed by various analytical methods. The influence of various structural buffer layers on defects were evaluated in order to suppress the formation of defects. It was shown that the buffer layer with low-temperature interface layer and superlattice structure presents obvious inhibitory effects on defects. Among these, specimens with superlattice interface exhibits the lowest TDDs of 3.1 × 107 cm−2 and moderate HDs of 2.4 × 107 cm−2.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 61774130, 11474248, 61534008, 61790581), and the Ph.D. Programs Foundation of Ministry of Education of China (No. 20105303120002), National Key Technologies R&D Program of China 2018YFA0209101.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Energy and Environment Science, Key Laboratory of Renewable Energy Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technology Ministry of Education, Yunnan Key Lab of Opto-electronic Information Technology, Yunnan Normal University, Kunming, 650092, Yunnan Province, People’s Republic of China

    Yong Li, Xiaoming Li, Ruiting Hao, Jie Guo, Yunpeng Wang, Abuduwayiti Aierken, Yu Zhuang, Faran Chang, Kang Gu, Guoshuai Wei & Xiaole Ma

  2. State Key Laboratory for Superlattices and Microstructures, Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100083, People’s Republic of China

    Guowei Wang, Yingqiang Xu & Zhichuan Niu

  3. Synergetic Innovation Center of Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, Anhui Province, People’s Republic of China

    Guowei Wang, Yingqiang Xu & Zhichuan Niu

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  1. Yong Li
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  2. Xiaoming Li
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  3. Ruiting Hao
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  4. Jie Guo
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  7. Yu Zhuang
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  9. Kang Gu
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  10. Guoshuai Wei
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  13. Yingqiang Xu
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  14. Zhichuan Niu
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Correspondence to Ruiting Hao, Jie Guo or Guowei Wang.

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Li, Y., Li, X., Hao, R. et al. MBE growth of high quality AlInSb/GaSb compound buffer layers on GaAs substrates. Opt Quant Electron 52, 138 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11082-020-2247-4

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