Wei Che Sun

Crystal orientation mechanism of ZnTe epilayers formed on different orientations of sapphire substrates by molecular beam epitaxy

The electrooptic effect in ZnTe has recently attracted research attention, and various device structures using ZnTe have been explored. For application to practical terahertz wave detector devices based on ZnTe thin films, sapphire substrates are preferred because they enable the optical path alignment to be simplified. ZnTe/sapphire heterostructures were focused upon, and ZnTe epilayers were prepared on highly mismatched sapphire substrates by molecular beam epitaxy. Epitaxial relationships between the ZnTe thin films and the sapphire substrates with their various orientations were investigated using an X-ray diffraction pole figure method. (0001) c-plane, (1-102) r-plane, (1-100) m-plane, and (11-20) a-plane oriented sapphire substrates were used in this study. The epitaxial relationship between ZnTe and c-plane sapphire was found to be (111) ZnTe//(0001) sapphire with an in-plane orientation relationship of [−211] ZnTe//[1-100] sapphire. It was found that the (211)-plane ZnTe layer was grown on the m-plane of the sapphire substrates, and the (100)-plane ZnTe layer was grown on the r-plane sapphire. When the sapphire substrates were inclined from the c-plane towards the m-axis direction, the orientation of the ZnTe thin films was then tilted from the (111)-plane to the (211)-plane. The c-plane of the sapphire substrates governs the formation of the (111) ZnTe domain and the ZnTe epilayer orientation. These crystallographic features were also related to the atom arrangements of ZnTe and sapphire.

Surface Texture and Crystallinity Variation of ZnTe Epilayers Grown on the Step-Terrace Structure of the Sapphire Substrate

ZnTe/sapphire heterostructures were focused, and ZnTe thin films were prepared on highly mismatched sapphire substrates by molecular beam epitaxy. A sapphire substrate possessing an atomically-smooth step-terrace structure was used to improve the crystallinity and morphology of the produced ZnTe film. The growth mode of the ZnTe thin film on a sapphire substrate with an atomically-smooth step-terrace structure was found to shift to a two-dimensional growth mode, and a ZnTe thin film possessing a flat surface was obtained. The crystallographic properties of the ZnTe film suggested that the resulting layer consisted of a single (111)-oriented domain. The photoluminescence property was also improved, and the interface lattice alignment between the ZnTe and sapphire was also affected by the atomically-smooth step-terrace structure.

Epitaxial Relationship Analysis Between ZnTe Epilayers and Sapphire Substrates

Zinc telluride (ZnTe) epilayers were grown on S-plane (

Defect density reduction in core layer of ZnTe electro-optical waveguide by low lattice mismatched interfaces

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Surface modification of a-plane sapphire substrates and its effect on crystal orientation of ZnTe layer

101¯1) sapphire substrates by molecular beam epitaxy, and the epitaxial relationships between the two were compared with data previously obtained for layers grown on c-plane (0001), m-plane (

Growth and electro-optical characterization of ZnMgTe/ZnTe waveguide by molecular beam epitaxy

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