MBE growth physics: application to device technology

Abstract

We present in this review a consistent picture of the current status of epitaxial growth physics, as related to molecular beam epitaxy. After a short introduction in the field we describe the different growth modes and the attributed theoretical models. Among the simulation methods used presently to describe the different growth modes, we selected the Monte-Carlo simulation for a more detailed example. The experimental part of the paper is divided in to two main sections of lattice-matched and lattice-mismatched systems. In the first part, we concentrate on the growth mechanisms on nominally oriented substrates and substrates with vicinal surfaces, which includes the description of the growth of tilted and serpentine superlattices. In the second part we discuss the concept of the critical layer thickness together with island formation and strain-induced effects. Besides these two main topics we report on the application of surface-active species, which provide a new avenue to achieve high-quality man-made microstructures against thermodynamic odds. Within this context self-organisation of epitaxial deposits is discussed. Finally, we describe material-related growth peculiarities, which are usually connected with a specific property of the constituent element, like volatility or extraordinary chemical reactivity. We briefly present the currently known growth characteristics for IV-IV heterostructures, wide-gap III–V and narrow-gap II–VI compounds.