T. Yamamoto et al., PREGROWTH TREATMENT DEPENDENCE OF SURFACE-MORPHOLOGY FOR GAAS GROWN ON EXACTLY ORIENTED (111)A SUBSTRATES BY MOLECULAR-BEAM EPITAXY, Journal of vacuum science & technology. A. Vacuum, surfaces, and films, 11(3), 1993, pp. 631-636
We investigate the dependence of growth layer surface morphology on su
rface treatment processes, i.e., etching, mounting, and loading wafers
before molecular-beam epitaxial growth. The surface morphology of a G
aAs growth layer on exactly oriented (111)A GaAs is found to be strong
ly dependent on stoichiometry and roughness of the surface before grow
th. Device-quality layers with a good surface morphology were obtained
only on the exactly oriented (111)A GaAs wafers etched with NH4OH:H2O
2:H2O (2:1:96) etchant, loaded into a growth chamber with little resid
ual As4, and mounted without In. It is very important to use the NH4OH
etchant (2:1:96) with (111)A GaAs, because it maintains the surface s
toichiometry and smoothness.