Relaxation mechanism of GaP grown on 001 Si substrates: influence of defects on the growth of AlGaP layers on GaP/Si templates

ABSTRACT

The mechanical stability of commercial GaP/Si templates during thermal annealing and subsequent growth of GaP and AlGaP using metal-organic chemical-vapour deposition is investigated. Although the as-grown GaP layer of the template originally presents an excellent surface morphology, annealing at temperatures between 645 ${}^{\circ }$C to 845 ${}^{\circ }$C to remove the native oxide prior to growth leads to plastic relaxation, accompanied by a variety of defects, including a dense grid of micro-twins. These micro-twins detrimentally affect GaP and AlGaP layers grown subsequently on the template.

KEYWORDS:

• GaP
• MOCVD
• HAADF-STEM
• epitaxial growth
• epitaxial systems
• defect formation
• heteroepitaxy

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge J. Nagle, A. De Rossi, and S. Combrié for their support and fruitful discussions. The authors thankfully acknowledge funding from the CNRS Renatech network and the ANR Labex TEMPOS (ANR-10-EQPX-0050).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 A detailed investigation of these claims are presented in Section 2.

Additional information

Funding

Funding for this study was provided by the CNRS Renatech network and the ANR Labex TEMPOS (ANR-10-EQPX-0050).