Theoretical and experimental study on epitaxial growth of antiphase boundary free GaAs on hydrogenated on-axis Si(001) surfaces

Abstract

The formation of double-layer atomic steps on Si(001) surfaces is an efficient way to eliminate the antiphase boundaries (APBs) on GaAs/Si(001) interfaces. The surface energy of on-axis Si(001) surfaces with different atomic step structures was calculated and analyzed from the first principles. An optimal hydrogen-annealing process condition, the hydrogen pressure of 800 mbar and the annealing temperature of 800 °C for 10 min, was obtained experimentally. Under this annealing condition, a 420 nm APB-free GaAs epitaxial layer grown on on-axis Si(001) substrates was achieved by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition. The effect of the annealing temperature on the APB density of the GaAs/Si(001) samples was explained from the aspects of thermodynamics and kinetics. It is of great significance to optimize the growth conditions of APB-free III–V epitaxial materials on on-axis Si(001) surfaces for the large-scale silicon monolithic integration of optoelectronic devices.

1.3 μm InAs/GaAs quantum-dot lasers grown on planar on-axis Si (001) substrates with high slope-efficiency and low differential resistance

“…Finally, a p-GaInP upper cladding layer and a p-GaAs contact layer were grown by MOCVD technology again. The detail process of the structure growth can be referred to our previous report [17,30,31].…”

“…To be compatible with CMOS processes, silicon-based QD lasers need to be grown on the on-axis Si (001) substrates. At present, there are two main approaches to growing APD-free III-V semiconductor materials on on-axis Si (001): planar silicon substrates [13][14][15][16][17] and patterned silicon substrates [18,19]. The latter greatly increases the complexity and the costs of the laser fabrication process.…”

Phase transformation mechanism of nominal Si(001) surface driven by hydrogen thermal annealing

“…Currently, for APD-free III-V materials directly grown on the nominal Si(001) substrates, two main schemes have to be addressed. The first one relates to the III-V materials grown on patterned Si substrates [10,11], and the second one involves the III-V materials grown on planar nominal Si(001) substrates [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. In terms of the patterned Si substrates, Li et al [10] and Wei et al [11] realized APD-free III-V materials grown on nano-scale V-groove and U-groove Si substrates, respectively.…”

“…But many holes are generated when homoepitaxial Si layer is grown on patterned Si substrate, which lead to a significant amount of heat accumulation and then seriously reduce device performance. Regarding the planar nominal Si(001) substrates, there are two approaches to realize APD-free III-V materials: the introduction of buffer layers [12][13][14] and hydrogen thermal annealing [15][16][17][18][19]. For the former, Kwoen et al [12,13] and Li et al [14] adopted this method to promote the kink and annihilation of APDs in buffer layers.…”

“…We preliminarily explored the effect of hydrogen thermal annealing temperature on the suppression of APDs in GaAs/Si(001) materials in 2021 [19]. However, the effect of the dynamic factor, especially the phase transformation process and annealing time, has not been considered.…”