Relationship Between Crystal Defects, Ge Outdiffusion and V/III Ratio in MOVPE Grown (001) GaAs/Ge

1993 ◽  
Vol 319 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Frigeri ◽  
G. Atrolini ◽  
C. Pelosi ◽  
F. Longo

AbstractTwo regimes of defect generation have been found in MOVPE GaAs/Ge layers upon changing the V/III ratio between 1.3 and 11.8. For low V/III ratio the layers contained misfit dislocations along with stacking faults that had been generated by dissociation of the misfit dislocations. The stacking fault density increased with decreasing V/III ratio. This might be explained by an enhanced mobility of the dissociated partials due the reduced unintentional doping of the layer caused by reduced Ge outdiffusion from the substrate when V/III is small. The secon regime corresponds to high V/III ratios and is characterized by the absence of misfit dislocations and the presence of a high density of planar defects. This means that breakdown of the 2D layer-by-layer growth occurred and 3D island growth prevailed.

Crystals ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 291
Author(s):  
Alberto Perrotta ◽  
Julian Pilz ◽  
Roland Resel ◽  
Oliver Werzer ◽  
Anna Maria Coclite

Direct plasma enhanced-atomic layer deposition (PE-ALD) is adopted for the growth of ZnO on c-Si with native oxide at room temperature. The initial stages of growth both in terms of thickness evolution and crystallization onset are followed ex-situ by a combination of spectroscopic ellipsometry and X-ray based techniques (diffraction, reflectivity, and fluorescence). Differently from the growth mode usually reported for thermal ALD ZnO (i.e., substrate-inhibited island growth), the effect of plasma surface activation resulted in a substrate-enhanced island growth. A transient region of accelerated island formation was found within the first 2 nm of deposition, resulting in the growth of amorphous ZnO as witnessed with grazing incidence X-ray diffraction. After the islands coalesced and a continuous layer formed, the first crystallites were found to grow, starting the layer-by-layer growth mode. High-temperature ALD ZnO layers were also investigated in terms of crystallization onset, showing that layers are amorphous up to a thickness of 3 nm, irrespective of the deposition temperature and growth orientation.


MRS Bulletin ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 27-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Roland

Strain relaxation in lattice-mismatched, heteroepitaxial systems is one of the classic problems in materials physics, which has gained new urgency with the increased applications of strained layers in microelectronic systems. In general both the structure and the integrity of the thin films are strongly influenced by strain. For instance it has long been known that under strain, the growth changes from an initial layer-by-layer growth mode to one with three-dimensional islanding. In the seminal works of van der Merwe, and Matthews and Blakeslee, this change in growth mode is explained in terms of the introduction of strain-relieving misfit dislocations, which appear when the film has reached some critical thickness. Recently it has become clear that this change in growth mode can take place even without the introduction of misfit dislocations. Such dislocation-free coherent islanding, or “roughening,” has been observed experimentally both in Ge/Si and in InGaAs/GaAs systems. Furthermore recent experiments show that in Ge/Si(100) systems, the thin films display a curious asymmetry with respect to the sign of the strain: Films under compression roughen by forming coherent islands while those under tension remain relatively smooth. A possible mechanism behind this strain-induced type of roughening is the subject of this article.


1999 ◽  
Vol 580 ◽  
Author(s):  
St. Lackner ◽  
R. Abermann

AbstractThe growth stress of metal films was measured continuously both during as well as after their deposition under UHV-conditions with a cantilever beam technique. The metal films were deposited onto 10 rim thick alumina substrate films prepared by reactive evaporation of Al in an oxygen atmosphere. The substrate temperature for the metal deposition was varied from -20°C to 500°C.The growth stress of both titanium and aluminum films deposited at room temperature and above is characteristic of island growth and the formation of a polycrystalline film. The film stress built up in these films decreases with increasing substrate temperature. Below RT the growth stress of titanium films indicates a transition from island growth to layer by layer growth due to a reduced adatom mobility. The temperature range in which this transition in the growth mode occurs is strongly affected by impurities in the Ti-evaporation source material and gas ambient.In the last part of this paper we present results of experiments in which the above metals were evaporated simultaneously from separate sources to form alloy films with TiAl3-stoichiometry. Sudden changes in the incremental film stress are tentatively attributed to segregation and phase formation phenomena.


1997 ◽  
Vol 493 ◽  
Author(s):  
Q. D. Jiang ◽  
Z. J. Huang ◽  
C. L. Chen ◽  
A. Brazdeikis ◽  
P. Jin ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTWe have made a comparative invetigation of the surface microstructures of epitaxially grown ferroelectric SrBi2Ta2O9, BaTiO3 films, and metallic SrRuO3 films, using scanning probe microscopy. Though their lattices (or pseudotetrogonal lattices) match closely with SrTiO3 (001) substrates, SPM results show very different surface microstructures. The surfaces of SrRuO3 films display atomically flat terraces of 90° oriented step edges. The size of steps is about 6 Å. The surface of BaTiO3 films deposited at various temperatures displays uniform rectangular islands. Different stages of SrBi2Ta2O9 epitaxial growth have been studied on thickness gradient films, which show clearly 2D nucleation and layer-by-layer growth, following a transition from 2D to 3D island growth. It finally develops into a surface exhibiting round hills consisting of curved terraces with size of steps ranging from 6 Å to 12.5 Å.


1997 ◽  
Vol 11 (21n22) ◽  
pp. 981-987
Author(s):  
H. Q. Yin ◽  
T. Arakawa ◽  
Y. Kaneda ◽  
T. Yoshikawa ◽  
N. Haneji ◽  
...  

La 2-x Sr x CuO 4 ultra-thin films with thickness 200 Å were fabricated by pulsed laser deposition method in oxygen ( O 2) atmosphere. The morphology of deposited films was investigated by reflection high energy electron diffraction (RHEED), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electronic microscopy (SEM). The strong oxygen ambient pressure dependence of film morphology was observed. In high oxygen ambient pressure, the film growth is dominated by island growth mode. The results imply that the experimental conditions of oxygen ambient pressure and substrate temperature are critical for the layer-by-layer growth mode.


1987 ◽  
Vol 94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcia H. Grabow ◽  
George H. Gilmer

ABSTRACTThe structure and stability of thin epitaxial films have been investigated using molecular dynamics computer simulations. One issue of interest is the stability of a smooth film relative to 3-dimensional clusters. The simulation results show that the uniform film is never the lowest energy state for a system with finite misfit. However, the uniform film, produced in a layer-by-layer growth mode, can persist in a metastable state at substantial misfits, e.g. 10% at 1/2 the melting point. This is a result of the large nucleation barrier to the formation of clusters.The second issue is the quality of the interface between the film and the substrate. At equilibrium, the critical thickness for the introduction of misfit dislocations is larger for films on the diamond cubic (100) substrate than on the (111), and differs from predictions based on continuum mechanics. We find that coherent films remain in metastable equilibrium far beyond the critical misfit calculated for full equilibrium, because a large free energy barrier inhibits the introduction of misfit dislocations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Qi Zhu ◽  
Zhiliang Pan ◽  
Zhiyu Zhao ◽  
Guang Cao ◽  
Langli Luo ◽  
...  

AbstractNanoscale materials modified by crystal defects exhibit significantly different behaviours upon chemical reactions such as oxidation, catalysis, lithiation and epitaxial growth. However, unveiling the exact defect-controlled reaction dynamics (e.g. oxidation) at atomic scale remains a challenge for applications. Here, using in situ high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and first-principles calculations, we reveal the dynamics of a general site-selective oxidation behaviour in nanotwinned silver and palladium driven by individual stacking-faults and twin boundaries. The coherent planar defects crossing the surface exhibit the highest oxygen binding energies, leading to preferential nucleation of oxides at these intersections. Planar-fault mediated diffusion of oxygen atoms is shown to catalyse subsequent layer-by-layer inward oxide growth via atomic steps migrating on the oxide-metal interface. These findings provide an atomistic visualization of the complex reaction dynamics controlled by planar defects in metallic nanostructures, which could enable the modification of physiochemical performances in nanomaterials through defect engineering.


2022 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 117
Author(s):  
А.А. Корякин ◽  
С.А. Кукушкин ◽  
А.В. Осипов ◽  
Ш.Ш. Шарофидинов

The nucleation mechanism of aluminum nitride films grown by the method of hydride vapor phase epitaxy on hybrid substrates 3C-SiC/Si(111) is theoretically analyzed. The temperature regions and vapor pressure regions of components are determined in which the island growth mechanism and the layer-by-layer growth mechanism are realized. The theoretical conclusions are compared with the experimental data. The morphology of aluminum nitride film on 3C-SiC/Si(111) at the initial growth stage is investigated by the method of scanning electron microscopy. The methods of controlling the change of the growth mechanism from the island growth to the layer-by-layer growth are proposed.


1995 ◽  
Vol 399 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Oktyabrsky ◽  
J. Narayan

ABSTRACTHigh-resolution transmission electron microscopy has been used to study formation of interfacial defects related to misfit strain accommodation in Ge/Si heterostructures (mismatch 4%) grown in the two-dimensional mode. Special emphasis is placed on the conditions leading to a two-dimensional (layer-by-layer) growth mode. We discuss general features of a dislocation tangle resulted from glide-limited plastic relaxation, typical for highly mismatched (001)-diamond and zinc-blende heterostructures. The evolution of the dislocation network as a function of film thickness and thermal annealing is controlled by growth instabilities and dislocation interactions. The observed correlation in distribution of parallel misfit dislocations including pairing (at <2 nm) of misfit segments from intersecting glide planes and rearrangements in a nonequilibrium dislocation network driven by elastic interaction between 60° dislocation segments in the almost relaxed heterostructures are discussed in detail. Pairing of the 60° glide dislocations results either in their combination to form pure edge 90° dislocations or in the dissociation into partials. We propose and experimentally verify a model for the latter process involving the formation of extrinsic stacking faults in the heterolayers under compressive strain.


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