Stress and surface studies of SILAR grown CdS thin films on GaAs(100)

Cadmium sulfide thin films were grown on GaAs (100) by the successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR) technique from aqueous precursor sol utions. The purpose of this work was to analyze and find stress dependence of CdS thin films thickness and growth mode. The stress of the thin films w as characterized by means of laser interferometry, composition and morpholo gy by electron spectroscopy for chemical analysis (ESCA) and by atomic forc e microscopy (AFM). Correlation between the growth mode and the residual st ress level is demonstrated. The changes from three-dimensional to two-dimen sional growth of the film results in the change from tensile to compressive residual stress (from 1.39 to -2.50) x 10(9) N/m(2). (C) 1999 Elsevier Sci ence S.A. All rights reserved.