Scattering mechanisms and defects in InP epitaxially grown on (001) Si substrates

Abstract

Carrier concentration and mobility of unintentionally doped InP layers, grown directly on Si using metal-organic vapor-phase epitaxy, have been studied. The formation of antiphase domains (APDs) was found to depend on annealing of the Si substrate in an AsH3 flow prior to epitaxial growth. Dislocation densities determined by the wet chemical delineation technique were (8±1)×107 cm−3, seemingly uncorrelated to APDs in the layers. In addition to a shallow donor and a compensating acceptor, a deep donor was observed affecting the temperature dependence of the free-electron concentration between 77 and 300 K. The electron mobility in this temperature range could be described in terms of the scattering mechanisms which are dominant in homoepitaxial InP, namely, scattering due to polar optical phonons, to ionized impurities, and to space charges. Electron scattering due to either of these mechanisms was strongly influenced by the occurrence of antiphase boundaries (APBs). The space-charge density as well as the degree of compensation of the epitaxial layers increases with the density of APBs. Degraded 300 K mobilities were obtained indicating the effect of local stress at the APB.