Optoelectronic III-V Heterostructures on SI Substrates

The results of a three-year program to investigate the epitaxial growth of the III-V semiconductors, particularly the InGaAsPInP materials system, on Si substrates is presented. The heterostructures were grown by gas- source molecular beam epitaxy GSMBE and were designed for applications in optoelectronics. With regard to growth of InP and InGaAsP alloys on Si, the research program was successful in reducing misfit dislocations and stacking faults resulting from the 8 lattice mismatch between InP and Si. A strained layer superlattice of InxGa1-xPInyGa1-yP X not equal Y was used as a buffer layer. The use of InGaP as buffer layers led to extensive development, in parallel with the InP-on-Si work, of InGaP layers by GSMBE. The Schottky barrier energies for both n-type and p-type materials were measured for the first time for the wide bandgap alloys InGaP and InGaAlP when lattice matched to GaAs.