Publications

The influence of a high N2 background pressure on the molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) growth of GaAs has been investigated. Measurements to determine the minimum As4 pressure necessary to maintain stoichiometric growth at different substrate temperatures with and without a high N2 background pressure were performed. The As4 pressures required for cases when a high N2 background was present were systematically above those required without an N2 background. The GaAs growth process has been modelled using kinetic rate equations and by including surface site blocking terms the model accounts for the data taken by the authors. The model also agrees well with GaAs growth kinetic data published by several other authors.

Wafer curvature in MBE grown heterostructures: Wafer curvature in strained MBE grown heterostructures has been studied. Theories on semiconductor wafer curvature have been re-examined and errors that have persisted in the literature have been corrected. This paper presents an approach to calculating the wafer curvature for an arbitrary multilayer system using basic physical equations. X-ray diffraction measurements have been performed to measure the radius of curvature of several samples and the results are in good agreement with the theory presented here.