A Study of Substrate Orientation Dependence of the Solid-Phase Epitaxial Growth of Amorphised GaAs

Abstract

AbstractIn-situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM) has been utilized in conjunction with conventional ex-situ Rutherford backscattering spectrometry and channeling (RBS/C), in-situ time resolved reflectivity (TRR) and ex-situ TEM to study the influence of substrate orientation on the solid-phase epitaxial growth (SPEG) of amorphised GaAs. A thin amorphous layer was produced on semi-insulating (100), (110) and (111) GaAs substrates by ion implantation of 190 and 200 keV Ga and As ions, respectively, to a total dose of 1e14/cm2. During implantation, substrates were maintained at liquid nitrogen temperature. In-situ annealing at ∼260°C was performed in the electron microscope and the data obtained was quantitatively analysed. It has been demonstrated that the non-planarity of the crystalline-amorphous (c/a)-interface was greatest for the (111) substrate orientation and least for the (110) substrate orientation. The roughness was measured in terms of the length of the a/c-interface in given window as a function of depth on a frame captured from the recorded video of the in-situ TEM experiments. The roughness of the c/a-interface was determined by the size of the angle subtended by the microtwins with respect to the interface on ex-situ TEM cross-sectional micrographs. The angle was both calculated and measured and was the largest in the case of (111) plane. The twinned fraction as a function of orientation, was calculated in terms of the disorder measured from the RBS/C and it was greatest for the (111) orientation.