Effect of growth conditions on incorporation of Si into Ga and As sublattices of GaAs during molecular-beam epitaxy

Abstract

The effect of dopant concentration and growth-surface crystallographic orientation on the incorporation of Si into Ga and As sublattices was investigated during GaAs molecular-beam epitaxy. The epitaxial layers (epilayers) were grown on GaAs substrates with (100), 2°(100), 4°(100), and 8°(100) orientations at a temperature of 520°C and with (111)A, 2°(111)A, 2°(111)A, 5°(111)A, 6°(111)A, and 8°(111)A (where A = Ga) orientations at a temperature of 480°C. The Sidopant concentration was varied within 1017–1019 cm−3. Through electrical and photoluminescent methods of investigation, the Si impurity was found to occur at the sites of both GaAs-layer sublattices not only as simple donors and acceptors (SiGa and SiAs), but also as SiGa-SiAs, SiGa-VGa, and SiAs-VAs complexes. The concentration of Si impurity in various forms depends on the doping level of the layers and on the growth-surface orientation. Amphoteric properties of Si manifest themselves more prominently on the (111)A face than on the (100) one. It is shown that impurity defects form at the stage of layer crystallization and depend on the growth-surface structure.