Growth of epitaxial silicon-on-insulator substrates by solid state epitaxy

Single step growth of crystalline silicon on insulator (c-SOI) substrates based on rare earth oxide (REO) insulator layers are presented. Growth of crystalline REOs on silicon is possible due to their unique lattice matching to twice the lattice spacing of silicon. The single crystal nature of REOs make further silicon overlayer growth with moderate defect densities possible. In this paper we present the growth of Gd₂O₃ and (Er_xNd_1-x)₂O₃ on silicon (111) substrates by solid state epitaxy. Silicon overlayers grown by e-beam evaporation on Gd₂O₃ single crystal films exhibit specular and shiny surfaces conducive for further growth of silicon by chemical routes. Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) growth of silicon on top of the e-beam evaporated template layers were grown at 1150°C. Samples were characterized by AFM, TEM and X-ray diffraction.