Use of tertiarybutylarsine for GaAs growth

The use of AsH₃ in the organometallic vapor phase epitaxial (OMVPE) growth of GaAs and other As containing III/V semiconductors has a number of disadvantages, including toxicity hazard, purity problems associated with storage cylinders, and low pyrolysis rate at the low temperatures often desirable in OMVPE growth. A new organometallic source, tertiarybutylarsine (TBAs), has recently become available. In this letter we report the results of OMVPE growth of GaAs using trimethylgallium (TMGa) and TBAs in a one atmosphere ambient. The major results of the study are (1) the vapor pressure of TBAs is measured to be 96 Torr at 10 °C, (2) the pyrolysis rate of TBAs appears to be greater than that of AsH₃ under similar conditions, (3) as a consequence of (2), excellent morphology GaAs layers can be grown at lower values of V/III ratio (approximately unity) using TBAs than using AsH₃ (4) no additional carbon incorporation is produced by the use of the organometallic group V source. These factors make TBAs a promising candidate to replace AsH₃ in vapor phase epitaxial growth of GaAs.