A systematic investigation was made of the molecular beam epitaxial growth of self-organized GaSb islands on a GaAs surface. The lattice mismatch between GaAs and GaSb was 7.8%. At low growth temperatures, only one type of island was observed, and was thought to issue from nucleation clusters. When the growth temperature was increased, another type of island appeared, due to coalescence. When the growth temperature was above 535C, only the latter were observed. On the basis of the temperature dependence of the island number-density and size, the surface diffusion energy and activation energy of GaSb on GaAs surfaces were deduced to be 0.85 and 2.15eV, respectively.

Growth of self-organized GaSb islands on a GaAs surface by molecular beam epitaxy T.Wang, A.Forchel: Journal of Applied Physics, 1999, 85[5], 2591-4