Studies of the initial stages of liquid phase epitaxy growth of InGaAs on GaAs

A theoretical analysis of the nucleation kinetics of liquid phase epitaxial (LPE) growth of InGaAs on GaAs was conducted using classical heterogeneous nucleation theory incorporating the lattice mismatch between the alloy and the substrate. Non-equilibrium contact between the InGaAs ternary saturated liquid and GaAs substrate under isothermal conditions was considered. The explicit expression for lattice mismacth induced supercooling for growth of the chosen system was established and used for evaluation of the nucleation parameters. It is proved theoretically that the nucleation barrier for the formation of InyGa1−yAs on GaAs depends very strongly on the composition of the alloy. The conditions for the growth of good quality InGaAs on GaAs and shown theoretically and these results are compared with experimental values.