Investigations on low temperature mo-cvd growth of GaAs

The growth conditions for the deposition at low temperatures of epitaxial layers of GaAs on (100) GaAs crystals using TMG and arsine are studied in detail. The films are grown at atmospheric pressure in a vertical reactor in which the arsine is fed in through the rf heated susceptor for precracking. The growth temperature was varied between 680°C and 450°C. In the whole temperature range epitaxial growth was obtained. The growth rate at temperatures below 600°C depends on the AsH₃ flow, suggesting that the availibility of As vapor species, not AsH₃ limits epitaxial growth in this temperature range. For a constant AsH₃ /TMG ratio of 8 the growth rate decreases by exp (-E/kT) with an activation energy of E = 1.5 eV. Growth rates as low as 0.5 um/h have been achieved. Unintentionally doped layers show semi-insulating behaviour at growth temperatures below 500° C, similar to the behaviour seen from MBE layers. However, n-type layers with reasonable mobilities can be grown in the low temperature range (450 ° C) using H₂ Se as the doping gas.