Using Arsine (AsH3) as a Source of Arsenic in Molecular Beam Epitaxy.

Recent research indicates that cracked arsine produces a better source of As than the conventional solid sources for the MBE growth of quality semiconductors. Further investigation into this topic was the problem of this thesis. A Varian 360 MBE system with conventional furnaces was modified for use with arsine. An arsine handling system and two different cracking furnaces using commercially available resources were constructed. The first furnace constructed was a bulbous design with internal baffles for insuring longer furnace dwell times for the arsine molecules. The second design used a helical quartz tube, approximately 20 inches long, inside a tantalum furnace. Several samples were grown using each cracking furnace. Preliminary results indicate an unsuspected cracking mechanism is responsible for earlier successes perhaps the primary cracking mechanism is not pyrolytic but photolytic or catalytic. Author