High carbon doping efficiency of bromomethanes in gas source molecular beam epitaxial growth of GaAs

Abstract

Carbon tetrabromide (CBr4) and bromoform (CHBr3) have been studied as carbon doping sources for GaAs grown by gas source molecular beam epitaxy (GSMBE) with elemental Ga and thermally cracked AsH3. Hole concentrations in excess of 1×1020 cm-3 have been measured by Hall effect in both CBr4- and CHBr3-doped GaAs, which agrees closely with the atomic C concentration from secondary-ion mass spectrometry, indicating complete electrical activity of the incorporated carbon. The GaAs growth rate is unaffected by the CBr4 and CHBr 3 fluxes over the range of dopant flow investigated. The efficiencies of carbon incorporation from CBr4 and CHBr3 are, respectively, 750 and 25 times that of trimethylgallium (TMG), which is commonly employed as a carbon doping source in metalorganic MBE (MOMBE). The sensitivity of carbon incorporation to varying substrate temperature and V/III ratio has been observed to be significantly reduced with CBr4 and CHBr 3 from that obtained under similar growth conditions with TMG in MOMBE.