TEM CHARACTERIZATION OF GaAs PIN DIODES
AT LOW TEMPERATURES ON Si SUBSTRATES
G. ARAGON, S.I. MOLINA, L. GONZALEZ*, Y. GONZALEZ*, J.V. ANGUITA*, F.
BRIONES* and R. GARCIA
Departamento de Ciencia de los Materiales e Ingenieria Metali~rgica y Qufmica
Inorgdnica. Universidad de Cddiz. Apdo 40, Puerto Real, 11510-C.diz. Spain.
*Centro Nacional de Microelectr6nica. Serrano 144, 28006-Madrid. Spain.
ABSTRACT
GaAs pin and nip diodes have been grown by Atomic Layer Molecular Beam
Epitaxy at 350
0
C on p-type and n-type (001) Si substrates respectively. These devices
present different electrical characteristics. TEM characterization of these structures
shows an asymmetric planar defect distribution whose orientation depends on the
type of doping introduced in the GaAs layer immediately grown on the Si substrate.
These results can be explained taking into account that the dissociation of
dislocations depends both on the polarity of the dislocation and the doping type of the
epilayer.
INTRODUCTION
The sucessfull assessment of an actual III-V on Si technology is strongly
conditioned to a temperature reduction of the entire growth process, from the Si
surface preparation to the epitaxial growth itself, in order to compatibilize III-V and
CMOS based on Si technologies.
Epitaxial growth at low temperatures (Ts<400
0
C) is then mandatory for
monolithic integration purposes.
However, device performance will be influenced by the kind and density of
defects which appear during low growth temperature to accommodate the large lattice
mismatch between the III-V compound and the Si substrate.
Besides the growth temperature, the density and type of doping impurities can
also affect the lattice mismatch relaxation process. In fact, we have observed different
electrical characteristics on GaAs pin diodes, grown at low temperature by Atomic
Layer Molecular Beam Epitaxy (ALMBE), on p-type Si substrates compared to nip
diodes grown on n-type Si substrates.
In this paper we present a TEM study of low growth temperature fabricated
GaAs pin diodes on Si substrates in order to assess the influence of the defect
structure on the electrical behaviour of such devices.
EXPERIMENTAL
The samples were grown by ALMBE[1] at Ts=350
0
C on (001) doped Si
substrates 20 off toward [110]. The samples consist of an unintentionally doped GaAs
layer sandwiched between two GaAs layers doped with Si and Be (n and p
respectively) at concentrations of 2 1018 atoms/cm
3
. Two kinds of structures have
been studied, one of them consists of a p-Si substrate/p+-i-n+ GaAs and the other of a
n-Si substrate/n+-i-p+ GaAs (figure 1). From this point we will label to the samples
grown on n-type and p-type Si substrate as NO and P0 respectively. Some structures
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Mat. Res. Soc. Symp. Proc. Vol. 326. ©1994 Materials Research Society