Growth Processes of ZnTe Epilayers Deposited by MBE on GaAs(100) Vicinal Surfaces - Studies by Static and Dynamic RHEED

Static and dynamic reflection high energy electron diffraction (RHEED) has been applied for studying the initial growth processes of ZnTe crystallized by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) on vicinal surfaces of GaAs(100) substrates. Atomically smooth ZnTe epilayers have been grown by MBE when in situ thermal desorption of the substrate protecting oxide layer was performed in the ultra high vacuum environment of the vacuum growth chamber just before the growth of ZnTe started. By gradual increasing of the substrate temperature of the crystallized ZnTe epilayers from 300°C to 420°C, when recording the RHEED intensity oscillations at these and eleven intermittent temperatures, it has been shown that the transition from the 2D-nucleation growth mechanism to the step-flow growth mechanism of ZnTe occurs at 410°C. Measuring periods of RHEED intensity oscillations recorded during the MBE growth processes it has been demonstrated that the growth rate of ZnTe at constant fluxes of the constituent elements decreases with increasing temperature from 0.37 ML/s at 300°C to 0.22 ML/s at 400°C.