GaP films were grown on off-cut Si(001) substrates using migration enhanced epitaxy nucleation followed by molecular beam epitaxy, with the intent of controlling and eliminating the formation of heterovalent (III-V/IV) nucleation-related defects—antiphase domains, stacking faults, and microtwins. Analysis of these films via reflection high-energy electron diffraction, atomic force microscopy, and both cross-sectional and plan-view transmission electron microscopies indicated high-quality GaP layers on Si that portended a virtual GaP substrate technology, in which the aforementioned extended defects were simultaneously eliminated. The only prevalent remaining defects were the expected misfit dislocations due to the GaP/Si lattice mismatch.

Control and Elimination of Nucleation-Related Defects in GaP/Si(001) Heteroepitaxy. T.J.Grassman, M.R.Brenner, S.Rajagopalan, R.Unocic, R.Dehoff, M.Mills, H.Fraser, S.A.Ringel: Applied Physics Letters, 2009, 94[23], 232106