Effect of two-step growth on the heteroepitaxial growth of InSb thin film on Si (001) substrate: A transmission electron microscopy study

Abstract

InSb thin films were grown on Si (001) substrate via both conventional one-step growth and two-step growth methods by molecular beam epitaxy. The effect of two-step growth was investigated by transmission electron microscopy. A lot of planar defects and surface steps were observed in the InSb thin film directly grown on buffer layer. The crystalline quality of the InSb thin film was improved when it was grown via two-step growth. The low-temperature InSb initiation layer of two-step growth relieved a misfit strain by generating 90° misfit dislocations and obstructed the propagation of defects by trapping at the interface.

Growth of high‐quality InSb layer on (001) Si substrate with an initial intermediate‐layer of InAs quantum dots

“…1b is the (10 µm × 10 µm) AFM image of the InSb film. The root‐mean‐square roughness of the surface deduced from this image is 5.142 nm, which is comparable to 7.162 nm (or 4.237 nm) for InSb grown with an AlSb buffer using one‐step (or two‐step) growth by Kim et al 7. The occurrence of square‐shaped images (red circles) on the inset seems to be caused by microtwins 7, 17, which will further be discussed in conjunction with the TEM images (Fig.…”

“…However, as can be seen in the HR‐STEM image of Fig. 2b, there was neither a distinct sign for the existence of InAs QDs nor any singular region noticed in the study by Kim et al 7 except for a faint trace of an intermediate layer (see the blue circle) with a thickness of ∼1 nm.…”

“…Nevertheless, efforts for the growth of InSb on less‐expensive and widely used Si substrates can also be found. However, to overcome the insurmountable lattice‐mismatch between InSb and Si, insertion of a thick buffer‐layer such as GaAs 5, Ge 6, AlSb 7, or fluoride 8 has been attempted. Also, efforts for direct growth of InSb on Si without any buffer have used substrates oriented along (111) or 4°‐off‐(001) with the resulting electron mobility ( µ e ) at 300 K of 23 000 cm 2 /Vs for 1.8‐µm‐thick InSb 9 or 55 000 cm 2 /Vs for 8‐µm‐thick InSb 10, respectively.…”

Experiments and analysis of the two-step growth of InGaAs on GaAs substrate

“…To extend the response of a detector to a longer wavelength, the growth of In x Ga 1−x As alloy with high In content (where x > 0.53) becomes necessary. The use of two-step growth in highly mismatched systems (such as GaN/Al 2 O 3 , 12,13 GaN/SiC, 14 InSb/Si, 15 etc.) Compared with In x Ga 1−x As/GaAs (x > 0.53), In x Ga 1−x As/InP (x > 0.53) has a smaller lattice mismatch, but it suffers from several insuperable disadvantages including high fragility, immature process, etc.…”

Heterointegration of Compound Semiconductors by Ultrathin Layer Splitting

“…A two-step growth process using a buffer layer deposited at a relatively low temperature (300°C) was proven to be efficient in reducing dislocation density and eliminating antiphase domains in the GaAs/Si system (29,30). However, this approach is not as effective for larger mismatch systems such as InSb/Si (31). Alternatively, growth on a metamorphic composite buffer leads to relatively higher quality CS layers.…”