A study was made of the effect of Te termination, of the GaAs (001) surface, upon defect generation during the hetero-epitaxy of ZnSe. High densities of faulted defects were generated in ZnSe films that were grown, layer-by-layer, on the Te-terminated GaAs surface. This was closely related to the formation of a thin Ga2Te3-like interface layer. The defect density was found to increase with substrate temperature during the exposure of GaAs (001) to Te at up to 500C. However, defect generation was suppressed by annealing at a higher temperature before ZnSe growth. This was attributed to a change, in the surface reconstruction of Te-terminated GaAs (001), that was caused by the annealing.

A.Ohtake, L.H.Kuo, K.Kimura, S.Miwa, T.Yasuda, C.Jin, T.Yao, K.Nakajima, K.Kimura: Physical Review B, 1998, 57[3], 1410-3