Heteroepitaxial Growth of Layered Semiconductor GaSe on a Hydrogen-Terminated Si(111) Surface*

Layered III-VI semiconductor GaSe has been heteroepitaxially grown on HF-treated Si(111) surfaces. The HF-treated Si surface is chemically inactive because of the hydrogen termination of active dangling bonds. GaSe can be grown on such a surface through weak van der Waals interaction, which relaxes the lattice matching requirement. With careful control of the substrate temperature, thermal desorption of surface hydrogen atoms was prevented so that a single-domain film of GaSe could be grown with good crystallinity. Auger electron spectra and high-resolution electron energy loss spectra revealed high quality of the grown GaSe film.