Initial stage of liquid phase heteroepitaxy of III–V ternary alloys

Abstract

The initial stage of liquid phase heteroepitaxy (LPHE) of the III–V ternary alloys from the supercooled dilute liquid solutions, taking into account the lattice mismatch between the epitaxial layer and substrate, is considered. The non-equilibrium epitaxial process is described by the minimum condition of the Helmholtz free energy of the heterogeneous system. The affinities of formation reactions of the binary compounds constituting the III–V ternary alloys are equal to one another at the heteroepitaxial growth. The compositional dependencies of the In x Ga 1 −x P alloys grown from the 10°C supercooled liquid solutions on the temperature are demonstrated. The lattice-pulling effect dominates at the initial stage of the LPHE of the lattice mismatch alloys from the supercooled liquid solutions. The theoretical estimations of the compositions obtained for the In x Ga 1 −x P and GaAs x P 1− x alloys are compared with the available experimental results.