Reflectance anisotropy oscillations during MOCVD and MBE growth of GaAs (001)

Abstract

GaAs (001) surfaces in both metalorganic vapour phase epitaxy (MOVPE) and molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) are studied under As stabilisation as well as during growth by reflectance anisotropy spectroscopy (RAS). During MBE growth reflection high energy electron diffraction (RHEED) measurements are performed simultaneously. As a consequence of the oscillating density of steps during island growth, time resolved RAS measurements show oscillations with monolayer periodicity in both epitaxial systems. In order to separate morphology related and surface reconstruction domain related contributions to RAS oscillations an anisotropic effective medium model is applied. In both MBE and MOVPE domains of reduced As coverage close to the island boundaries are found to be responsible for RAS oscillations. In MBE this typically results in oscillations between spectra belonging to (2×4) reconstructions of different mean As dimer density. In MOVPE the surface oscillates between states with an increased and a decreased concentration of Ga dimers while c(4×4)-like As dimers are still present.