Effects of substrate orientation on the growth of InSb nanostructures by molecular beam epitaxy

In this work, the effects of substrate orientation on InSb quantum structure growth by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) are presented. Motivated by the observation that (411) evolves naturally as a stable facet during MBE crystal growth, comparison studies have been carried out to investigate the effects of the crystal orientation of the underlying GaSb substrate on the growth of InSb by MBE. By depositing InSb on a number of different substrate orientations, namely: (100), (311), (411), and (511), a higher nanostructure density was observed on the (411) surface compared with the other orientations. This result suggests that the (411) orientation presents a superior surface in MBE growth to develop a super-flat GaSb buffer surface, naturally favorable for nanostructure growth. Published by AIP Publishing.