Growth and characterization of highly nitrogen doped ZnTe films on GaAs (001) by molecular beam epitaxy. (January 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Zhang, Linen; Liu, Chao; Yang, Qiumin; Cui, Lijie; Zeng, Yiping
• Is Part Of: Materials science in semiconductor processing. Volume 29(2015:Jan.)
• Page Start: 351
• Page End: 356
• Publication Date: 2015-01
• Subjects: ZnTe -- p-type doping -- Molecular beam epitaxy -- RF plasma nitrogen cell; Semiconductors -- Periodicals; Integrated circuits -- Materials -- Periodicals; Semiconducteurs -- Périodiques; Circuits intégrés -- Matériaux -- Périodiques; Electronic journals; 621.38152
• DOI: 10.1016/j.mssp.2014.06.045
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1369-8001

Abstract

Abstract: Highly doped p-type ZnTe films grown on GaAs (001) were fabricated by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) using a radio frequency (RF) plasma nitrogen cell, and were characterized by the reflection high-energy electron diffraction, X-ray diffraction, Hall, Raman and atomic force microscope analysis. We have found that under the optimized undoped growth conditions, it was easy to obtain high-quality single crystalline undoped ZnTe films on GaAs (001) substrate. However, when adding an RF plasma nitrogen cell to doping and applying the similar growth conditions, there was a dramatic impact on the crystalline quality of ZnTe:N films, i.e. instead of high-quality single crystalline films, only highly doped p-type polycrystalline ZnTe:N films with doping levels of more than 1×10 20 cm −3 were obtained. In addition, there existed the evidence of the second phase of Te clusters in the polycrystalline ZnTe:N films for the first time, and through the rapid-thermal-annealing (RTA) treatment at the temperature above 400 °C for 5 min, the Te clusters would disappear and the crystalline quality would be improved significantly. The possible origin of this phenomenon was also discussed.