Molecular beam epitaxy technique

Our communications infrastructure relies heavily on advanced materials chemistries. From the manufacturing processes used to fabricate optical fiber cables to molecular beam epitaxy techniques for the creation of nanoscale heterostructures that enable many optical devices, innovations in materials chemistry have played a role. An example of a recent technological achievement that relates to optical communications systems is the MEMS-based (microelectromechanical system) Lambda Router. The Lambda Router is an optical system developed at Lucent Technologies for switching narrowly focused... 

Another emerging film growth technique that employs metal-organic film growth precursors is termed CBE (chemical beam epitaxy). CBE is a variant of the widely used MBE (molecular beam epitaxy) technique, except that metal-organic... 

Dann, A.J., H. Hoshi, and Y. Mayurama (1990). The structure and properties of phthalocyanine films grown by the molecular beam epitaxy technique. I. Preparation and characterization. J. Appl. Phys. 67, 1371. 

Molecular beam epitaxy techniques under ultrahigh vacuum have been applied to examine whether high quality thin films can be achieved [41-45]. 

Molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) is a radically different growth process which utilizes a very high vacuum growth chamber and sources which are evaporated from controlled ovens (15,16). This technique is well suited to growing thin multilayer stmctures as a result of very low growth rates and the abihty to abmpdy switch source materials in the reactor chamber. The former has impeded the use of MBE for the growth of high volume LEDs. 

Epitaxial crystal growth methods such as molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) and metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) have advanced to the point that active regions of essentially arbitrary thicknesses can be prepared (see Thin films, film deposition techniques). Most semiconductors used for lasers are cubic crystals where the lattice constant, the dimension of the cube, is equal to two atomic plane distances. When the thickness of this layer is reduced to dimensions on the order of 0.01 )J.m, between 20 and 30 atomic plane distances, quantum mechanics is needed for an accurate description of the confined carrier energies (11). Such layers are called quantum wells and the lasers containing such layers in their active regions are known as quantum well lasers (12). 

The composition must be controlled to give the required emission wavelength. Techniques utilized include molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE) and liquid-phase epitaxy (LPE). 

Another evaporation technique is molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). MBE produces extremely pure and very thin films with abrupt composition changes and is being considered for extremely exacting electronic and optoelectronic applications. PI However, the deposition rate is very slow and the process is still considered experimental. 

The results of the ellipsometric study are presented in Table 9. As is clear from the table, the resultant average thickness of the semiconductor layer, obtained from one bilayer precursor, is about 0.8 nm. This value can be considered the thickness resolution of this technique. It is worth mentioning that among the available techniques, only molecular beam epitaxy allows one to reach such resolution. However, the proposed technique is much simpler and does not require complicated or expensive equipment. 

The proposed technique seems to be rather promising for the formation of electronic devices of extremely small sizes. In fact, its resolution is about 0.5-0.8 nm, which is comparable to that of molecular beam epitaxy. However, molecular beam epitaxy is a complicated and expensive technique. All the processes are carried out at 10 vacuum and repair extrapure materials. In the proposed technique, the layers are synthesized at normal conditions and, therefore, it is much less expansive. The presented results had demonstrated the possibility of the formation of superlattices with this technique. The next step will be the fabrication of devices based on these superlattices. To begin with, two types of devices wiU be focused on. The first will be a resonant tunneling diode. In this case the quantum weU will be surrounded by two quantum barriers. In the case of symmetrical structure, the resonant... 

Summarizing, it is possible to conclude that the technique of forming ultrasmall semiconductor particles turned out to be a powerful tool for building up single-electron junctions, even working at room temperature, as well as thin semiconductor layers and superlattices with structural features, reachable in the past only via molecular beam epitaxy. 

The deposition of a wide range of materials using beams of elemental sources in high-vacuum apparatus (10-4—10-8 torr), essentially by physical methods, is known as molecular beam epitaxy (MBE)8 12 and atomic layer epitaxy (ALE). These methods will be mentioned where there is an overlap with CVD techniques, but will not be fully reviewed. (They are mentioned also in Chapter 9.15). 

The primary methodologies for forming thin-film materials with atomic level control are molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) [4-9], vapor phase epitaxy (VPE) [10-12], and a number of derivative vacuum based techniques [13]. These methods depend on controlling the flux of reactants and the temperature of the substrate and reactants. 

Molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) is an expensive yet widely used technique for producing epitaxial layers of metals, insulators and III-V and II-VI based semiconductors, both at the research and the industrial production level (Herman, 1996). It consists of deposition of molecular beams of atoms or clusters of atoms, which are produced by heating up a solid source, onto a heated crystalline substrate in ultra-high vacuum. MBE is characterized by low growth temperatures and low growth rates and thus enables producing high-precision epitaxial structures with monolayer... 

Quantum dots are the engineered counterparts to inorganic materials such as groups IV, III-V and II-VI semiconductors. These structures are prepared by complex techniques such as molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), lithography or self-assembly, much more complex than the conventional chemical synthesis. Quantum dots are usually termed artificial atoms (OD) with dimensions larger than 20-30 nm, limited by the preparation techniques. Quantum confinement, single electron transport. Coulomb blockade and related quantum effects are revealed with these OD structures (Smith, 1996). 2D arrays of such OD artificial atoms can be achieved leading to artificial periodic structures. 

Molecular beam epitaxy is a widely used technique for growing structures on crystal surfaces. One of the goals is to be able to control the growth process to such extent that one can make the nanostructures complex enough for a particular purpose. An ambitious example is a quantum computer. ... 

This technique requires a substrate temperature of 500°C. A lower temperature growth of the related material (Rb,Ba)BiOs, at 300°C, has been reported through the use of molecular beam epitaxy... 

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