Epitaxial growth of semiconducting BaSi2 films on Si(III) substrates by molecular beam epitaxy

We have grown [100]-oriented BaSi2 multidomain epilayers on Si(111) substrates by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) using a BaSi2 epitaxial template formed by reactive deposition epitaxy (RDE). The [100]-oriented BaSi2 films were obtained over a wide temperature range from 450 to 700degreesC: The optimum growth temperature was about 600degreesC at which the integrated intensity of X-ray diffraction peak was maximum and the full width at half maximum (FWHM) was minimum. X-ray pole figure measurements revealed that there were three epitaxial variants of [100]-oriented BaSi2 due to the three-fold symmetry of the Si(111) surface.