A theory for metalorganic vapor phase epitaxial selective growth on planar patterned substrates

Abstract

We developed a theory for selective area metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy on planar patterned substrates. The theory includes effects of vapor phase diffusion and surface migration. We found that vapor phase effects, such as vapor phase diffusion and readsorption of desorbed source materials, can be included in a two-dimensional surface equation. The surface equation revealed that three surface parameters, which are renormalized by the vapor phase effects, determine the growth rate distribution: diffusion length on the epilayer, diffusion length on the mask, and the lifetime ratio for desorbing and solidifying of the mask and the epilayer. When surface migration has a significant effect, these parameters are independent. If vapor phase diffusion dominates, however, the number of independent parameters is reduced from three to two. Our theory accurately predicted experimental results. Experiments indicated that surface migration has a significant effect.