Influence of antimony doping on nanoscale arsenic clusters and dislocation loops in low-temperature grown gallium arsenide films

Transmission electron microscopy was employed to study the microstructure of GaAs films grown by molecular-beam epitaxy at low temperature and delta-doped with Sb. Thus obtained material contained 0.5 at.% of excess arsenic that precipitates upon post-growth anneals. The Sb doping was found to strongly affect the microstructure of arsenic clusters and their ripening rate upon annealing. Segregation of Sb impurities in the As clusters was revealed. In contrast to the well known pure As clusters, the As-Sb clusters induced strong local deformations in the surrounding GaAs matrix. Relaxation of these deformations resulted in formation of dislocation loops, which was studied both experimentally and theoretically.