Effects of substrate misorientation on the structural properties of CdTe(111) grown by molecular beam epitaxy on GaAs(100)

CdTe (111) layers were grown by molecular beam epitaxy on oriented and misoriented GaAs (100) substrates. The layers were characterized by x-ray diffraction and photoluminescence microscopy. The results indicate that the CdTe layers grown on GaAs (100) misoriented 2° towards the [110] direction had peaks with full width at half-maximum up to four times narrower than either of the other orientations tested. Only threading dislocations were visible on this orientation by photoluminescence microscopy. These results indicate that the structural quality of CdTe grown on GaAs can be significantly improved by the use of an appropriately misoriented substrate.