Kinetic-energy induced smoothening and delay of epitaxial breakdown in pulsed-laser deposition

Journal Article · Wed Aug 15 00:00:00 EDT 2007 · Physical Review. B, Condensed Matter and Materials Physics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVB.76.085431· OSTI ID:21055141

Shin, Byungha; Aziz, Michael J ^[1]

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1. Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 (United States)

We have isolated the effect of kinetic energy of depositing species from the effect of flux pulsing during pulsed-laser deposition (PLD) on surface morphology evolution of Ge(001) homoepitaxy at low temperature (100 deg. C). Using a dual molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) PLD chamber, we compare morphology evolution from three different growth methods under identical experimental conditions except for the differing nature of the depositing flux: (a) PLD with average kinetic energy 300 eV (PLD-KE); (b) PLD with suppressed kinetic energy comparable to thermal evaporation energy (PLD-TH); and (c) MBE. The thicknesses at which epitaxial breakdown occurs are ranked in the order PLD-KE>MBE>PLD-TH; additionally, the surface is smoother in PLD-KE than in MBE. The surface roughness of the films grown by PLD-TH cannot be compared due to the early epitaxial breakdown. These results demonstrate convincingly that kinetic energy is more important than flux pulsing in the enhancement of epitaxial growth, i.e., the reduction in roughness and the delay of epitaxial breakdown.

• OSTI ID: 21055141
• Journal Information: Physical Review. B, Condensed Matter and Materials Physics, Vol. 76, Issue 8; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.76.085431; (c) 2007 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1098-0121
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
BREAKDOWN
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
CRYSTALS
ELECTRON CORRELATION
ELECTRON GAS
ENERGY BEAM DEPOSITION
EV RANGE 100-1000
FILMS
KINETIC ENERGY
LASER RADIATION
MOLECULAR BEAM EPITAXY
MONTE CARLO METHOD
MORPHOLOGY
PULSED IRRADIATION
QUANTUM DOTS
ROUGHNESS
SURFACES
TEMPERATURE RANGE 0065-0273 K
THICKNESS