GROWTH AND CHARACTERIZATION OF INP/GAAS EPILAYERS ON SI SUBSTRATES BY LOW-PRESSURE METALORGANIC VAPOR-PHASE EPITAXY

Heteroepitaxial growth of InP on Si with an intermediate GaAs buffer layer by low-pressure metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy is reported. Single-crystal InP epilayers with specular surfaces can be reproducibly obtained. The uniform composition of this heterostructure was identified by the Auger depth profile. The best room-temperature electron mobility of the undoped InP epilayer can reach 3250 cm2/V&middots with a carrier concentration of 1×1015 cm-3. It was found that the InP electron mobility is critically dependent on the growth temperature. The 77 K photoluminescence (PL) of the InP layer exhibits a strong near-band-edge emission. No evident shift in PL peak energy for the InP/GaAs/Si sample compared with that for the InP homoepitaxial sample was first observed in this study. An evident effect of the GaAs buffer-layer thickness on the InP optical quality is also demonstrated.