Michael F. Stumborg

Determination of growth mechanisms of MBE grown BaF2 on Si(100) by target angle dependence of RBS yields

Abstract The angular dependence of 2.0 MeV 4He1+ Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy (RBS) yields have been used to determine the growth mechanism of epitaxial BaF2 films grown on Si(100) substrates by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). RBS yields from uniformly thick layers are characterized by a (cos φ)−1 dependence, where φ is the angle between the incident beam and the target normal. Deviations from this relationship have been attributed to layers which are composed of islands, rather than films of uniform thickness. A series of BaF2 films of increasing deposition time were examined in this way. The results of this analysis show that the BaF2 at first grows in small islands which eventually coalesce into a uniform epitaxial layer.