Migration-Enhanced Epitaxy of GaAs and AlGaAs

Abstract

Surface migration is effectively enhanced by evaporating Ga or Al atoms onto a clean GaAs surface under an As-free or low As pressure atmosphere. This characteristic was utilized by alternately supplying Ga and/or Al and A S 4 to the substrate surface for growing atomically-flat GaAs-AlGaAs heterointerfaces, and also for growing high-quality GaAs and AlGaAs layers at very low substrate temperatures. The migration characteristics of surface adatoms have been investigated through reflection high-energy electron diffraction measurements. It was found that different growth mechanisms are operative in this method at both high and low temperatures. Both these mechanisms are expected to yield flat heterojunction interfaces. By applying this method, GaAs layers and GaAs-AlGaAs single quantum-well structures with excellent photoluminescence were grown at substrate temperatures of 200 and 300degC, respectively.