Universal description of III-V/Si epitaxial growth processes

In the context of advanced photonics or photovoltaics, the monolithic integration of high-quality III-V materials as near as possible to the Si substrate is of great interest. Here, the authors experimentally and theoretically clarify the III-V/Si crystal growth processes. Monodomain 3D islands are observed at the early stages of AlSb, AlN, and GaP epitaxy on Si, independently of the misfit. It is shown that complete III-V/Si wetting cannot be achieved in most III-V/Si systems. Surface/interface contributions to the free energy variations are found to be prominent over strain relief processes. They also propose a general and unified description of III-V/Si growth processes, including the description of antiphase boundaries formation.