The effect of As passivation on the molecular beam epitaxial growth of high-quality single-domain CdTe(111)B on Si(111) substrates

The effect of As passivation of Si(111) substrates on the subsequent molecular beam epitaxial growth of CdTe(111) is investigated through a detailed comparison of the microstructures of two types of films. The film grown on a substrate treated with a Te flux is found to exhibit a rough film-substrate interface and has very poor crystalline quality with a (111)A orientation. In contrast, a CdTe film grown under identical conditions except for the Si substrate treated with an As flux is observed to have an atomically abrupt film-substrate interface and a single-domain structure in the technologically more relevant (111)B orientation. A growth mechanism for the formation of these high-quality single-domain CdTe(111)B films is proposed. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(99)03329-X].