Heteroepitaxial growth of InSb films on the patterned Si(001) substrate

The InSb films was grown on the patterned Si(001) substrate with line and space along with [110] direction without V-shaped grooves. In spite of the large lattice mismatch of about 19.3% between InSb and Si, the InSb film was heteroepitaxially grown on the line-shaped 〈001〉 surfaces. The InSb(004) peak in the XRD (χ=0o) patterns of the film became larger with decrease in the space width between the line-shaped 〈001〉 surface. From the relation of the degree of heteroepitaxy and the areal ratio of the line-shaped 〈001〉 surfaces, we found that the InSb crystals were heteroepitaxially grown not only on the line-shaped 〈001〉 surface but also on the space region between the line-shaped 〈001〉 surfaces in the case of narrower space width (at least <3 μm). However, the full width at half maximum of the InSb(004) peak indicates poor crystal quality of the films. The scanning electron microscope images of the InSb film grown on the patterned Si(001) substrate with 3 μm space width showed a lot of grain on the surface.