Gallium arsenide-on-silicon technology-an overview

A review of the progress achieved in the field of GaAs-on-Si technology is presented. This technology has extended rapidly from material research to circuit development. Growth techniques like metal organic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE), molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), and migration enhanced epitaxy (MEE) have been used for such fabrication. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Raman scattering, and secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS) are used for investigating the heterostructure. Such devices have extensive applications in the field of lasers and light-emitting devices. Research over the last few years has resulted in a considerable improvement in the quality of the heterostructure. Though qualities such as ultrafast speed, superior mechanical properties, low material cost, higher power dissipation levels, higher packing densities, and optoelectronic capability offer a number of advantages over pure GaAs substrates, problems resulting due to the 4.1% lattice mismatch, and the factor of three difference in thermal conductivity give rise to certain defects, and restrict the performance of GaAs-on-Si based devices