Size effects on the growth mode and roughness of sub-micron structures grown by selective area epitaxy

Abstract

We h a ve observed changes in the morphology of InP lms grown in epi-ready substrates and on patterns created by photo and plow-mode AFM lithography. These changes are attributed to di erent levels of contamination of the surface, which f a vor nucleation of clusters over a two-dimensional lm for the lithography-processed surface. The area of nucleation is smaller than the dimensions of the patterns created by lithography, so no size e ects due to the presence of the pattern could be observed. The lm morphologies exhibited well de ned exponents for system sizes smaller than 0.2 m but no de ned growth exponent.