High growth rate hydride vapor phase epitaxy at low temperature through use of uncracked hydrides

Abstract

We demonstrate hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE) of GaAs with unusually high growth rates (RG) at low temperature and atmospheric pressure by employing a hydride-enhanced growth mechanism. Under traditional HVPE growth conditions that involve growth from Asx species, RG exhibits a strong temperature dependence due to slow kinetics at the surface, and growth temperatures >750 °C are required to obtain RG > 60 μm/h. We demonstrate that when the group V element reaches the surface in a hydride, the kinetic barrier is dramatically reduced and surface kinetics no longer limit RG. In this regime, RG is dependent on mass transport of uncracked AsH3 to the surface. By controlling the AsH3 velocity and temperature profile of the reactor, which both affect the degree of AsH3 decomposition, we demonstrate tuning of RG. We achieve RG above 60 μm/h at temperatures as low as 560 °C and up to 110 μm/h at 650 °C. We incorporate high-RG GaAs into solar cell devices to verify that the electronic quality does not deteriorate as RG is increased. The open circuit voltage (VOC), which is a strong function of non-radiative recombination in the bulk material, exhibits negligible variance in a series of devices grown at 650 °C with RG = 55–110 μm/h. The implications of low temperature growth for the formation of complex heterostructure devices by HVPE are discussed.