Reciprocal space mapping study of CdTe epilayer grown by molecular beam epitaxy on (2 1 1)B GaAs substrate

Abstract

We examine high quality, single crystal CdTe epilayer grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) on (2 1 1)B GaAs substrate using both positions and full width at half maximums (FWHMs) of reciprocal lattice points (RLPs). Our results demonstrate that reciprocal space mapping (RSM) is an effective way to study the structural characteristics of the high-index oriented epitaxial thin films having a large lattice mismatch with the substrate. The measurement method is defined first, and then the influence of shear strain ( xz) on the position of the (5 1 1) node of epilayer is clarified. It is concluded that the lattice tilting is likely to be related with the lattice mismatch. Nondestructive measurement of the dislocation density is achieved by applying the mosaic crystal model. The screw dislocation density, estimated to be 7.56×107 cm2, was calculated utilizing the broadened peakwidths of the asymmetric RLP of the epilayer lattice.