Low-Pressure MOVPE: The time of the pioneers

Abstract

This paper is the author’s personal view on the development of low-pressure metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy (LP-MOVPE) which took place in the late 70s and early 80s of last century. Pioneering work has been performed by the author and his co-workers in the labs of Thomson CSF, France, leading to many sophisticated devices including GaAs-GaAlAs- and InP-InGaAsP-based quantum well laser diodes which could be driven in CW mode, being grown successfully the first time by LP-MOVPE. This was only possible by a thorough analysis and a deep understanding of the underlying processes, in particular to overcome basic hurdles like the comparably low purity of the available MOVPE precursors at that time. Many results have kept their importance over decades and are still of major significance.