III-V Compounds-on-Si: Heterostructure Fabrication, Application and Prospects

Abstract

While silicon and gallium arsenide are dominant materials in modern micro-and nanoelectronics, devices fabricated from them still use Si and GaAs substrates only separately. Integrating these materials on the large and cheep Si substrate has been the subject of enormous research efforts for the past three decades. This review attempts to systematize and generalize the current understanding of the fundamental physical mechanisms governing the epitaxial growth of GaAs and related III-V compounds on Si substrates. Different kinds of bonding as a very promising non-epitaxial method for III-V thin film integration on Si substrate are reviewed. Basic techniques available for improving the quality of such het-erostructures are described, and recent advances in fabricating of device-quality III-V-on-Si heterostructures and corresponding devices are also presented.