Fabrication of A III B V nanostructures by droplet epitaxy has many advantages over other epitaxial techniques. Although various characteristics of the growth by droplet epitaxy have been thoroughly studied for both lattice-matched and mismatched systems, little is known about physical processes hindering the formation of small size InAs/GaAs nanostructure arrays with low density and thin wetting layer. In this paper, we experimentally demonstrate that the indium droplet diameter can be reduced by decreasing the deposition time, but this reduction is limited by a critical thickness of droplet formation dependent on the substrate temperature. Using the kinetic Monte Carlo model, we propose a mechanism considering that the droplet formation begins when the system overcomes a barrier determined by the substrate attraction. As a result of physical and chemical balancing between adatom aggregation and substrate wetting, this attraction becomes weaker with increasing either temperature or deposition amount, which leads to the critical layer formation and subsequent nucleation. Using this mechanism, it is possible to provide a wide control over the nanostructure growth which is especially important at high temperatures when the processes of the island ripening are particularly intensive.

Semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) in the InAs/AlGaAs system are of great importance due to their promising optoelectronic and nanophotonic applications. However, control over emission wavelength governed by Al content in the matrix is still limited because of an influence of surface Al content on QD size and density. In this paper, we study the growth of In nanostructures by droplet epitaxy on various AlGaAs surfaces. We demonstrate that an increase in the Al content leads to a decrease in the droplet density and an increase in their size, which contradicts the Stranski-Krastanov QD growth. Using a hybrid analytical-Monte Carlo model, we explain this phenomenon by the fact that In adatoms acquire higher mobility on a first indium monolayer which is bound to surface Al atoms. This assumption is confirmed by the fact that a temperature decrease does not lead to a great increase in the critical thickness of droplet formation on the Al-containing surfaces whereas it changes considerably on the GaAs surface. Furthermore, the Al content influence on the formation of In droplets is much less significant than on the growth of InAs QDs by the Stranski-Krastanov mode. This gives an opportunity to use droplet epitaxy to control the matrix bandgap without considerable influence on the QD characteristics.

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A thermodynamic analysis of processes of interphase interaction in the Ga-As-O system has been performed and their theoretical laws have been determined, taking into account nonlinear thermal physical properties of the compounds, the oxide film compositions, and modes of molecular-beam epitaxy of GaAs. The processes of interaction of the native oxide of GaAs with the substrate material and also with Ga and As 4 from a vapor gaseous phase have been studied experimentally. The experimental results correlate with the results of the thermodynamic analysis. The laws of influence of the removal of the proper oxide on the evolution of the GaAs surface morphology under conditions of the molecular-beam epitaxy have been proposed.

In this work, the effect of the dose of implantation of Ga atoms into the silicon surface on the epitaxial growth of GaAs was investigated. We demonstrate that the deposition of GaAs occurs mainly on modified areas. Separate crystallites of GaAs with an irregular shape are formed on modified areas at the lowest dose of Ga implantation equal to 1 pC/μm2, whereas an increase in the dose of Ga implantation leads to the coalescence of GaAs areas. At a maximum dose of 21 pC/μm2, degradation of the morphology and a decrease in the degree of filling of the area are observed, which is also confirmed by an increase in the roughness of the structure.