Cleaning of MBE GaAs substrates by hydrogen radical beam irradiation

Hydrogen radical beam cleaning of substrates for GaAs MBE growth has been studied. The cleaning effects of carbon and oxygen contaminated by exposure to air and a lower-grade vacuum were investigated using Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), capacitance-voltage (C-V) carrier profiling, and secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS). AES signals of contaminants decreased to the detection limit with hydrogen radical irradiation. Carrier depletion around the growth interface was also reduced with decreasing carbon density.