Epitaxial Growth of III-Vs on On-Axis Si: Breaking the Symmetry for Antiphase Domains Control and Burying

This work reports on the precise control of III-V semiconductors' antiphase domain formation and evolution during the epitaxial growth on an "on-axis" Si (001) substrate with a very low but controlled miscut. Especially, it is shown how, starting from a Si surface having a regular array of terraces, the crystal polarity of thin GaAs epilayers grown by molecular-beam epitaxy is defined through the Si surface topology, leading to a quasi-periodic 1D pattern of antiphase domains in the GaAs layer. Furthermore, this work demonstrates how this configuration breaks the symmetry between the two different III-V phases, without any step-flow-induced asymmetry. Following this strategy, an early burying of antiphase domains is demonstrated in GaAs epitaxially grown on a low-miscut Si substrate. This study generalizes previous models describing antiphase domain formation and evolution and establishes the important growth parameters for the development of high crystal quality III-V semiconductor devices monolithically integrated on low-miscut silicon substrates.