In Situ Reflectance Anysotropy Monitoring of Antiphase Domains Evolution during Growth of GaAs/Si (001)

Reflectance Anisotropy Technique is used for the first time to in situ monitor the Antiphase Domain annihilation process during Atomic Layer Molecular Beam Epitaxy (ALMBE) growth of GaAs on Si (001)2° off towards [110] direction. We show that this technique is able to provide quantitative information on the domain evolution from the onset of growth, making possible an accurate determination of the thickness at which single domain GaAs growth front is achieved. Experimental data obtained with this new technique during growth under different conditions might be useful with the modelling of APD annihilation mechanism.