Epitaxial Growth of III‐Vs on On‐Axis Si: Breaking the Symmetry for Antiphase Domains Control and Burying

Abstract

AbstractThis work reports on the precise control of III‐V semiconductors’ antiphase domain formation and evolution during the epitaxial growth on an “on‐axis” Si (001) substrate with a very low but controlled miscut. Especially, it is shown how, starting from a Si surface having a regular array of terraces, the crystal polarity of thin GaAs epilayers grown by molecular‐beam epitaxy is defined through the Si surface topology, leading to a quasi‐periodic 1D pattern of antiphase domains in the GaAs layer. Furthermore, this work demonstrates how this configuration breaks the symmetry between the two different III‐V phases, without any step‐flow‐induced asymmetry. Following this strategy, an early burying of antiphase domains is demonstrated in GaAs epitaxially grown on a low‐miscut Si substrate. This study generalizes previous models describing antiphase domain formation and evolution and establishes the important growth parameters for the development of high crystal quality III‐V semiconductor devices monolithically integrated on low‐miscut silicon substrates.