De-hydrogenation studies of carbon-doped In/sub 0.53/Ga/sub 0.47/As grown by gas-source MBE and their applications to InP/In/sub 0.53/Ga/sub 0.47/As HBTs

Abstract

We report on studies of the de-hydrogenation process by rapid thermal annealing of carbondoped 1% ,Ga0 47A~, grown by gas source molecular beam epitaxy (GSMBE). The main purpose is to understand the mechanism of the de-hydrogenation process in carbon-doped hO53Ga047As and find an in-situ solution to remove the hydrogen during the epitaxial growth to improve the performance of InPhGaAs HBTs. We examine the roles of the three mechanisms involved in the de-hydrogenation process: dissociation from the binding site; diffusion in the host material; and dissociation from the material surface. We find that diffusion is the dominant rate limiting mechanism. Based on the above ex situ de-hydrogenation studies, an I n P k 53G& 4 7 A s HBT was grown by GSMBE in which an in situ annealing without arsine flow was performed after finishing the base growth. The gain reduction and sigruficant improvement of transistor performance demonstrate the effectiveness of the in-situ annealing process at removing hydrogen.