Sulfur doping behavior of gallium antimonide grown by molecular-beam epitaxy

Abstract

Sulphur from an electrochemical source has been used to dope GaSb grown by molecular-beam epitaxy. The incorporation of sulphur in the epilayers has been measured by secondary ion mass spectrometry, and the effects of substrate temperature during growth and of the antimony-to-gallium flux ratio have been studied.The incorporation has been found to be a strong function of substrate temperature, varying from ∼100% below 435 °C to ∼1% at 525 °C. The incorporation also increases with antimony overpressure, varying by a factor of 3 on changing the antimony-to-gallium flux ratio from 1:1 to 4:1. The substrate temperature dependence is described by a simple kinetic model. The electrical activity of the incorporated sulphur is shown to be close to 100%.