Growth of InP on Si substrates by molecular beam epitaxy

Abstract

The growth of single-crystal InP films on (100) Si substrates by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) is described. Three different buffer layers were grown by gas-source MBE in order to reduce the density of dislocations created by the 8% InP-Si lattice mismatch. Double-crystal x-ray diffraction revealed that all buffer layers produced large-area single-crystal (100) InP films with the InP lattice tilted towards the 〈100〉 Si directions. A buffer layer of four Inx Ga1−x P/Iny Ga1−y P strained superlattices produced a specular InP film with an estimated dislocation density of 108–109 cm−2 and a residual stress of less than 5×10−4.