Liquid phase electro epitaxy growth kinetics of GaAs—A three-dimensional numerical simulation study

A three-dimensional numerical simulation study for the liquid phase electro epitaxial growth kinetic of GaAs is presented. The kinetic model is constructed considering (i) the diffusive and convective mass transport, (ii) the heat transfer due to thermoelectric effects such as Peltier effect, Joule effect and Thomson effect, (iii) the electric current distribution with electromigration and (iv) the fluid flow coupled with concentration and temperature fields. The simulations are performed for two configurations namely (i) epitaxial growth from the arsenic saturated gallium rich growth solution, i.e., limited solution model and (ii) epitaxial growth from the arsenic saturated gallium rich growth solution with polycrystalline GaAs feed. The governing equations of liquid phase electro epitaxy are solved numerically with appropriate initial and boundary conditions using the central difference method. Simulations are performed to determine the following, a concentration profiles of solute atoms (As) in the Ga-rich growth solution, shape of the substrate evolution, the growth rate of the GaAs epitaxial film, the contributions of Peltier effect and electromigration of solute atoms to the growth with various experimental growth conditions. The growth rate is found to increase with increasing growth temperature and applied current density. The results are discussed in detail.