Molecular beam epitaxial growth of indium antimonide and its characterization

Abstract

Indium antimonide (InSb) is a promising material for mid- and long-wavelength infrared device applications. However, because of material’s small band gap and low melting point, reproducibility of high quality epitaxial InSb is difficult to obtain. This article reports growth experimentations for determining suitable conditions for growing InSb on InSb(100) substrate using solid source molecular beam epitaxy. The effects of growth temperature and antimony/indium (Sb∕In) flux ratio on epilayer structure, surface roughness, and electronic properties were investigated. The process of oxide desorption observed from reflection high energy electron diffraction pattern is reported. A three-layer model was used to extract the electronic properties of the epilayer, taking into account the effect of parallel conduction. Process conditions for good structural and electronic properties of the InSb epilayer, which includes substrate temperature and flux ratio, have been established in this study and reported herein.