Dislocations in GaAs p-i-n diodes grown by hydride vapour phase epitaxy

Hydride vapour phase epitaxy grown all-epitaxial p-i-n structures were studied by synchrotron X-ray topography. Three types of process induced dislocations were found: short threading dislocations, long straight interfacial dislocations and circular arc dislocations. The majority of the dislocations observed are short straight threading dislocations, the density of which is typically about 5000 cm−2. The dislocations at the p-i interface are long straight lines parallel to [110]. They are screw dislocations having their Burgers vector parallel to [110], calculated from the contrast analysis of the well resolved dislocation images. One sample also showed a dense misfit dislocation network at the n-side. However, no misfit dislocations were seen in the back-reflection topographs of the n-side of the other samples, which shows that it is possible to grow a misfit-dislocation free n-type GaAs layer onto the substrate side of a hydride vapour phase epitaxy grown GaAs surface after proper substrate removal.