A growth diagram for chemical beam epitaxy of GaP$_{1-x}$N$_{x}$ alloys on nominally $(001)$-oriented GaP-on-Si substrates

Abstract

The dilute-nitride ternary compound GaP$_{1-x}$N$_{x}$ is highly attractive to monolithically integrate pseudomorphic red light-emitting devices and photovoltaic cells with the standard Si technology because it is lattice matched to Si with a direct band gap of $\approx1.96$ eV for $x=0.021$. Here, we report on the chemical beam epitaxy of GaP$_{x}$N$_{1-x}$ alloys on nominally $(001)$-oriented GaP-on-Si substrates. The incorporation of N into GaP$_{1-x}$N$_{x}$ was systematically investigated as a function of the growth temperature and the fluxes of the N and P precursors, 1,1-dimethylhydrazine (DMHy) and tertiarybutylphosphine (TBP), respectively. We found that the N mole fraction exhibits an Arrhenius behavior characterized by an apparent activation energy of $(0.79\pm 0.05)$ eV. With respect to the fluxes, we determined that the N mole fraction is linearly proportional to the flux of DMHy, and inversely proportional to the one of TBP. All results are summarized in an universal equation that describes the dependence of \textit{x} on the growth temperature and the fluxes of the group-V precursors. The results are further illustrated in a growth diagram that visualizes the variation of the chemical composition as the growth temperature and the flux of DMHy are varied. This diagram also shows how to obtain single-phase and flat GaP$_{1-x}$N$_{x}$ layers, as certain growth conditions result in chemically phase-separated GaP$_{1-x}$N$_{x}$ layers with rough surface morphologies. Last, our results demonstrate the feasibility of chemical beam epitaxy for the synthesis of single-phase and flat GaP$_{x}$N$_{1-x}$ layers with N mole fractions up to about $x=0.04$, a value well above the one required for the lattice-matched integration of GaP$_{1-x}$N$_{x}$-based devices on Si.