Advanced transmission electron microscopy investigation of defect formation in movpe-growth of gap on silicon using arsenic initial coverage

Integration of GaP layers on silicon substrates using AsH3 pre-exposure followed by a PH3-based GaP epitaxial growth allows the development of very promising processes for the photovoltaic industry, although many of the growth routines using this approach suffer from reproducibility issues when transferred to a new epitaxial system, leading to poor quality layers. This fact reveals a lack of knowledge on the mechanisms behind the formation of the most common planar defects (stacking faults and microtwins) and their dynamics for GaP/Si Metal Organic Vapor Phase Epitaxy using AsH3 and PH3. Therefore, in this work, a set of GaP/Si samples with a similarly high defect density grown between 700 °C and 725 °C, are analyzed by means of high-resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy and electron energy loss spectroscopy. The results presented show contaminant-free Si surfaces for temperatures above 725 °C, ruling out the hypothesis of contaminant as the origin of these planar defects. Regarding the interface Si/GaP, the GaP growth starts, in all the samples, with Ga Si bonds. Additionally, no traces of As are found, which reinforces the hypothesis of an effectively displacement of As on Si surface by Ga atoms at high temperature. Finally, it is observed complex chemical structures in the origin of the microtwins and the cause of the origin of these defects seems to be a localized gallium depletion at the GaP/Si interface.