EPITAXY

EPITAXY
● Greek Origin - EPI means “above/upon” & taxis means “deposition in ordered
manner”.
● Epitaxy refers to the method of depositing a crystalline layer over a crystalline
substrate( bulk crystal).
● The deposited film is denoted as epitaxial film or epitaxial layer.
● Bulk crystal substrate thickness is about 500 microns.
● Epitaxial films may be grown from gaseous or liquid precursors.
● The substrate acts as a seed crystal, the deposited film takes on a lattice structure
and orientation identical to those of the substrate.

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 Types of Epitaxy
● Depending on what type of reactions is taking place:
1. LPE – Liquid Phase Epitaxy
2. VPE - Vapour Phase Epitaxy
3. MBE – Molecular Beam Epitaxy
Chemical reactions: LPE & VPE
Very Sophisticated: MBE
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Fabrication Equipment - Molecular Beam
Epitaxy (MBE)

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What is done in the MBE?
▪ Very high vacuum condition to minimise the contamination problem
▪ Beams created by evaporating solid source in UHV; Evaporated beam of particle travel
through very high vacuum and then condense to shape the layer
▪ Doping is possible by adding impurity to source gas by(eg: Arsenic & Phosphorus)

▪ Two pumps: rotary & diffusion pump

▪ Si is placed in a crucible
▪ Next to this an electron gun is kept
▪ E-beam is focused on to the SI source & from there SI is getting evaporated in this
conical shape
▪ In order to introduce dopants , one uses an effusion cell through which a jet of
evaporated dopants come out.
▪ Shutters to place substrate
▪ MBE is very costly & very sophisticated equipment
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 Applications
● Nanotechnology
● Semiconductor fabrication
● High quality crystal growth – Si-Ge & Ga-N
● Deposit organic molecules onto crystalline substrate.

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Molecular Beam Epitaxy
➔ Very promising technique
➔ No chemical reactions
➔ Low temperature process
➔ Precised dopant control
➔ Growth rate can be controlled
➔ No boundary layer problem
➔ Costly system
➔ Auto doping is minimised
➔ Growth rate as small as 0.01µm/ min upto say 0.3µm/ min

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