Significant improvement in crystalline quality of MBE grown GaAs on Si (100) by rapid thermal annealing.

Rapid thermal annealing (RTA) has been found to significantly improve the crystalline quality of epitaxial GaAs grown on Si (100) substrates. After RTA at 900C for 10 s, the percentage of displaced atoms near the GaAs/Si interface in a 1.1micron thick GaAs layer, as estimated by Rutherford backscattering/ channeling, decreased from 20% to 7%. On another 0.6micron thick GaAs layer on Si, the percentage of displaced atoms near the GaAs/Si interface dropped from 20% to 9% as a result of RTA. Photoluminescence intensity (PL) after RTA increased significantly (as much as six fold in some cases), with the actual increase varying from sample to sample and with annealing conditions.