Effects of substrate orientation and surface reconstruction on patterned substrate OMVPE of GaAs

Abstract

Organometallic vapor phase epitaxial growth of GaAs on 320 nm high mesas was used to study the dependence of lateral growth upon the substrate misorientation from (100) and the mesa wall orientation on the substrate. GaAs (100) substrates were misoriented by 3° toward eight major crystallographic directions, consisting of the four nearest [111] and [110] directions. The mesa sidewalls were oriented either parallel to the 〈011〉 and 〈01\(\bar 1\)〉 directions or rotated by 45° to be parallel to the 〈001〉 and 〈010〉 directions. GaAs films were grown with TMGa and TBA at T=575°C. The lateral growth rates were up to 25 times higher than the vertical growth rate of 1.3 µm/hour. Optical microscopy and atomic force microscopy (AFM) showed that under the given growth conditions lateral growth off mesa sidewalls is most rapid in the 〈011〉 and/or 〈0\(\overline {11} \)〉 directions and less in the perpendicular 〈01\(\bar 1\)〉 and 〈0\(\bar 1\)1〉 directions (lateral growth anisotropy). By raising the temperature to 625°C lateral growth in the 〈01\(\bar 1\)〉 -〈0\(\bar 1\)1〉 directions increased while it remained almost constant in the 〈011〉 -〈0\(\overline {11} \)〉 directions. Published results show that the partial pressure of As also affects lateral growth. Differences in the lateral growth rates in the 〈011〉 and its opposite 〈0\(\overline {11} \)〉 directions result from substrate misorientation but not from the orientation of the mesa walls on the substrate. Anisotropic lateral growth rates in different crystallographic directions appear to be caused by both, (1) 1-dimensional Ga diffusion defined by surface reconstruction, and (2) a relatively low energy barrier to atoms flowing over high-to-low terrace steps. A lateral growth model is proposed that describes anisotropic lateral growth at mesa sidewalls in terms of growth conditions and substrate misorientations. The model also explains the difference in the preferential lateral growth directions between MBE and OMVPE.