Graphene-assisted spontaneous relaxation towards dislocation-free heteroepitaxy
Source abstract
Abstract
Although conventional homoepitaxy forms high-quality epitaxial layers1-5, the limited set of material systems for commercially available wafers restricts the range of materials that can be grown homoepitaxially. At the same time, conventional heteroepitaxy of lattice-mismatched systems produces dislocations above a critical strain energy to release the accumulated strain energy as the film thickness increases. The formation of dislocations, which severely degrade electronic/photonic device performances6-8, is fundamentally unavoidable in highly lattice-mismatched epitaxy9-11. Here, we introduce a unique mechanism of relaxing misfit strain in heteroepitaxial films that can enable effective lattice engineering. We have observed that heteroepitaxy on graphene-coated substrates allows for spontaneous relaxation of misfit strain owing to the slippery graphene surface while achieving single-crystalline films by reading the atomic potential from the substrate. This spontaneous relaxation technique could transform the monolithic integration of largely lattice-mismatched systems by covering a wide range of the misfit spectrum to enhance and broaden the functionality of semiconductor devices for advanced electronics and photonics.
Source: europepmc · Quality: candidate unverified · Source record ↗
Research context
OpenAlex topics: GaN-based semiconductor devices and materials · Nanowire Synthesis and Applications · Graphene research and applications
SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.
References (34)
Show source-provided references
1. Chen, C. Q. et al. GaN homoepitaxy on freestanding (1100) oriented GaN substrates. Appl. Phys. Lett. 81, 3194–3196 (2002).10.1063/1.1516230 ↗
2. Kwon, O. et al. Monolithic integration of AlGaInP laser diodes on SiGe/Si substrates by molecular beam epitaxy. J. Appl. Phys. 100, 13103 (2006).10.1063/1.2209068 ↗
3. Matsunami, H. & Kimoto, T. Step-controlled epitaxial growth of SiC: high quality homoepitaxy. Mater. Sci. Eng. R. Rep. 20, 125–166 (1997).10.1016/S0927-796X(97)00005-3 ↗
4. Vaisman, M. et al. Effects of growth temperature and device structure on GaP solar cells grown by molecular beam epitaxy. Appl. Phys. Lett. 106, 063903 (2015).10.1063/1.4908181 ↗
5. Voigtländer, B., Weber, T., Šmilauer, P. & Wolf, D. E. Transition from island growth to step-flow growth for Si/Si (100) epitaxy. Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 2164–2167 (1997).10.1103/PhysRevLett.78.2164 ↗
6. Luan, H.-C. et al. High-quality Ge epilayers on Si with low threading-dislocation densities. Appl. Phys. Lett. 75, 2909–2911 (1999).10.1063/1.125187 ↗
7. Currie, M. T., Samavedam, S. B., Langdo, T. A., Leitz, C. W. & Fitzgerald, E. A. Controlling threading dislocation densities in Ge on Si using graded SiGe layers and chemical-mechanical polishing. Appl. Phys. Lett. 72, 1718–1720 (1998).10.1063/1.121162 ↗
8. Andre, C. L. et al. Impact of dislocation densities on n+∕ p and p+∕ n junction GaAs diodes and solar cells on SiGe virtual substrates. J. Appl. Phys. 98, 14502 (2005).10.1063/1.1946194 ↗
9. Lee, M. L., Antoniadis, D. A. & Fitzgerald, E. A. Challenges in epitaxial growth of SiGe buffers on Si (111), (110), and (112). Thin Solid Films 508, 136–139 (2006).10.1016/j.tsf.2005.07.328 ↗
10. Chen, R. et al. Nanolasers grown on silicon. Nat. Photonics 5, 170–175 (2011).10.1038/nphoton.2010.315 ↗
11. Ebert, C. B., Eyres, L. A., Fejer, M. M. & Harris, J. S. Jr MBE growth of antiphase GaAs films using GaAs/Ge/GaAs heteroepitaxy. J. Cryst. Growth 201-202, 187–193 (1999).10.1016/S0022-0248(98)01317-7 ↗
12. Lee, M. L., Fitzgerald, E. A., Bulsara, M. T., Currie, M. T. & Lochtefeld, A. Strained Si, SiGe, and Ge channels for high-mobility metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors. J. Appl. Phys. 97, 1 (2005).10.1007/10828028_1 ↗
13. Bean, J. C., Sheng, T. T., Feldman, L. C., Fiory, A. T. & Lynch, R. T. Pseudomorphic growth of GexSi1−x on silicon by molecular beam epitaxy. Appl. Phys. Lett. 44, 102–104 (1984).10.1063/1.94571 ↗
14. Fitzgerald, E. A. et al. Totally relaxed GexSi1−x layers with low threading dislocation densities grown on Si substrates. Appl. Phys. Lett. 59, 811–813 (1991).10.1063/1.105351 ↗
15. Song, T. L., Chua, S. J., Fitzgerald, E. A., Chen, P. & Tripathy, S. Strain relaxation in graded InGaN/GaN epilayers grown on sapphire. Appl. Phys. Lett. 83, 1545–1547 (2003).10.1063/1.1598295 ↗
16. Massies, J. & Grandjean, N. Oscillation of the lattice relaxation in layer-by-layer epitaxial growth of highly strained materials. Phys. Rev. Lett. 71, 1411–1414 (1993).10.1103/PhysRevLett.71.1411 ↗
17. Daruka, I. & Barabási, A.-L. Dislocation-free island formation in heteroepitaxial growth: a study at equilibrium. Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 3708–3711 (1997).10.1103/PhysRevLett.79.3708 ↗
18. Kim, Y. et al. Remote epitaxy through graphene enables two-dimensional material-based layer transfer. Nature 544, 340–343 (2017).10.1038/nature22053 ↗
19. Kong, W. et al. Polarity governs atomic interaction through two-dimensional materials. Nat. Mater. 17, 999–1004 (2018).10.1038/s41563-018-0176-4 ↗
20. Li, X. et al. Large-area two-dimensional layered hexagonal boron nitride grown on sapphire by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy. Cryst. Growth Des. 16, 3409–3415 (2016).10.1021/acs.cgd.6b00398 ↗
21. Attolini, G. et al. Optical and structural characterization of LP MOVPE grown lattice matched InGaP/GaAs heterostructures. Mater. Sci. Eng. B 91-92, 123–127 (2002).10.1016/S0921-5107(01)00968-0 ↗
22. Kato, T., Matsumoto, T. & Ishida, T. Raman spectral behavior of In1-xGaxP (0 < x < 1). Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 27, 983–986 (1988).10.1143/JJAP.27.983 ↗
23. Lee, H. et al. Study of strain and disorder of InxGa1−xP/(GaAs, graded GaP)(0.25 ≤ x ≤ 0.8) using spectroscopic ellipsometry and Raman spectroscopy. J. Appl. Phys. 75, 5040–5051 (1994).10.1063/1.355746 ↗
24. King-Ning, T., Mayer, J. W. & Feldman, L. C. Electronic Thin Film Science for Electrical Engineers and Materials Scientists (Macmillan, 1996).
25. Matthews, J. W. & Blakeslee, A. E. Defects in epitaxial multilayers: I. Misfit dislocations. J. Cryst. Growth 27, 118–125 (1974).
26. Freundlich, A., Bensaoula, A., Bensaoula, A. H. & Rossignol, V. Interface and relaxation properties of chemical beam epitaxy grown GaP/GaAs structures. J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 11, 843–846 (1993).10.1116/1.586761 ↗
27. Morales, F. M. et al. Microstructural improvements of InP on GaAs (001) grown by molecular beam epitaxy by in situ hydrogenation and postgrowth annealing. Appl. Phys. Lett. 94, 41919 (2009).10.1063/1.3077610 ↗
28. Bae, S.-H. et al. Unveiling the carrier transport mechanism in epitaxial graphene for forming wafer-scale, single-domain graphene. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 114, 4082–4086 (2017).10.1073/pnas.1620176114 ↗
29. Shim, J. et al. Controlled crack propagation for atomic precision handling of wafer-scale two-dimensional materials. Science 362, 665–670 (2018).10.1126/science.aat8126 ↗
30. Kim, J. et al. Layer-resolved graphene transfer via engineered strain layers. Science 342, 833–836 (2013).10.1126/science.1242988 ↗
31. Bae, S.-H. et al. Integration of bulk materials with two-dimensional materials for physical coupling and applications. Nat. Mater. 18, 550–560 (2019).10.1038/s41563-019-0335-2 ↗
32. Kum, H. et al. Epitaxial growth and layer-transfer techniques for heterogeneous integration of materials for electronic and photonic devices. Nat. Electron. 2, 439–450 (2019).10.1038/s41928-019-0314-2 ↗
33. Han, Y. et al. Sub-nanometre channels embedded in two-dimensional materials. Nat. Mater. 17, 129–133 (2018).10.1038/nmat5038 ↗
34. Hÿtch, M. J., Snoeck, E. & Kilaas, R. Quantitative measurement of displacement and strain fields from HREM micrographs. Ultramicroscopy 74, 131–146 (1998).10.1016/S0304-3991(98)00035-7 ↗