• DOI:10.1063/5.0031300
• Corpus ID: 222090689

Offcut-related step-flow and growth rate enhancement during (100) β-Ga2O3 homoepitaxy by metal-exchange catalyzed molecular beam epitaxy (MEXCAT-MBE)

@article{Mazzolini2020OffcutrelatedSA,
  title={Offcut-related step-flow and growth rate enhancement during (100) $\beta$-Ga2O3 homoepitaxy by metal-exchange catalyzed molecular beam epitaxy (MEXCAT-MBE)},
  author={Piero Mazzolini and Andreas Falkenstein and Zbigniew Galazka and Manfred Martin and Oliver Bierwagen},
  journal={arXiv: Materials Science},
  year={2020}
}

• P. Mazzolini, A. Falkenstein, +2 authors O. Bierwagen
• Published 1 October 2020
• Materials Science
• arXiv: Materials Science

In this work we investigate the growth of $\beta$-Ga2O3 homoepitaxial layers on top of (100) oriented substrates via indium-assisted metal exchange catalyzed molecular beam epitaxy (MEXCAT-MBE) which have exhibited prohibitively low growth rates by non-catalyzed MBE in the past. We demonstrate that the proper tuning of the MEXCAT growth parameters and the choice of a proper substrate offcut allow for the deposition of thin films with high structural quality via step-flow growth mechanism at relatively high growth rates for $\beta$-Ga2O3 homoepitaxy (i.e., around 1.5 nm/min, $\approx$45% incorporation of the incoming Ga flux), making MBE growth on this orientation feasible. Moreover, through the employment of the investigated four different (100) substrate offcuts along the [00-1] direction (i.e., 0$^\circ$, 2$^\circ$, 4$^\circ$, 6$^\circ$) we give experimental evidence on the fundamental role of the (-201) step edges as nucleation sites for growth of (100)-oriented Ga2O3 films by MBE.