Transition to faceting in multilayer liquid phase epitaxy of GaAs

Abstract

During deposition of p- and n-GaAs multilayers by a novel liquid phase epitaxy (LPE) technique on slightly misoriented substrates, a gradual transition from macroscopically steped surfaces to faceting has been observed. The change from various different growth mechanisms on corrugated LPE-grown surfaces to a single one with propagating steps of heights of the order of 10 Å leads to extremely flat surfaces and to improved homogeneous dopant incorporation. These factors are likely to increase the performance of optoelectronic and microwave devices.