All-epitaxial fabrication of thick, orientation-patterned GaAs films for nonlinear optical frequency conversion

Orientation-patterned GaAs (OPGaAs) films of 200 mum thickness have been grown by hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE) on an orientation-patterned template fabricated by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). Fabrication of the templates utilized only MBE and chemical etching, taking advantage of GaAs/Ge/GaAs heteroepitaxy to control the crystal orientation of the top GaAs film relative to the substrate. Antiphase domain boundaries were observed to propagate vertically under HVPE growth conditions so that the domain duty cycle was preserved through the thick GaAs for all domain periods attempted. Quasiphase-matched frequency doubling of a CO2 laser was demonstrated with the beam confocally focused through a 4.6 mm long OPGaAs film. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.