Apparatus for investigating metalorganic chemical vapor deposition-grown semiconductors with ultrahigh-vacuum based techniques

An apparatus is described here in detail for the transfer of a sample from a metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) reactor to an ultrahigh-vacuum (UHV) chamber without introducing any contamination. The surface of the sample does not change during transfer as is borne out by the identical reflectance difference (RD) spectrum measured first in the MOCVD reactor, i.e., in situ, and afterwards again in the UHV chamber. Making use of the earlier apparatus a semiconductor can be grown in the MOCVD reactor and can afterwards be investigated with any desired tool of surface science, in particular also those that require UHV. All the data collected in UHV can be identified with the RD spectrum measured already in the MOCVD reactor. Several examples are presented here for data collection in UHV on III-V semiconductors grown in the MOCVD reactor. They illustrate the ease and reliability of the here described apparatus for contamination-free sample transfer. Signals are presented in particular for the genuine MOCVD-grown P-rich seemingly (2 X 1) / (2 X 2) InP( 100) reconstructed surface that until now can only be investigated in UHV if one makes use of the sample transfer system described in this article. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.