GaAs on silicon grown by molecular beam epitaxy: Progress and applications for selectively doped heterostructure transistors

Recent progress of GaAs-on-Si technology is reviewed and the importance of initial nucleation is emphasized. Growth initiation with a gallium prelayer at a suitable low temperature combined with migration enhanced epitaxy and in-situ thermal annealing may be able to give substantially improved material quality. During the initial growth, use of the minimum necessary As4:Ga flux ration is found to be critical. Patterned growth or post-growth patterning releases tensile stress only if the growth edges are free. GaAs-on-Si was almost completely relaxed from stress by post-growth patterning to 5 μm × 5 μm size patterns. Steps on the surface owing to substrate misorientation do not affect the two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) transport properties in AlGaAs/GaAs selectively doped heterojunction transistor (SDHT) structures. For a sheet density of 1012 cm−2, a 2DEG mobility greater than 50 000 cm2 V−1 s−1 at 77 K was obtained on silicon substrates, which was found to be adequate for the fabrication of the state-of-the-art devices. For 1 μm-gate-length SDHTs, maximum transconductances of 220 and 365 mS mm−1 were measured at 300 K and 77 K, respectively. A minimum propagation delay time of 28 ps stage−1 was measured at 300 K for direct coupled field effect transistor logic (DCFL) ring oscillators with a power dissipation of 1.1 mW stage−1. The propagation delay time reduced to 17.6 ps stage−1 at 77 K. These results are comparable to the SDHT technology on GaAs substrates.