Growth and characterization of beryllium-based II-VI compounds

We report on the growth and characterization of beryllium–chalcogenide layers prepared on GaAs (100) by molecular beam epitaxy. Be- and Te-terminated BeTe surfaces show (4×1) and (2×1) reconstructions, respectively. The stability of each surface is investigated by reflection high energy electron diffraction as a function of substrate temperature. The dependence of growth rate of BeTe on growth temperature and Be cell temperature is investigated. The best full width at half maximum (FWHM) of a (400) x-ray rocking curve of BeTe is 78 arcsec. The dependence of the ZnBeSe energy gap on Be composition is obtained by four-crystal x-ray diffraction (XRD) and low temperature photoluminescence measurements. The energy gap of Zn1−xBexSe varies as Eg=0.0107x+2.790 (eV) for small Be composition (x<0.25) at 77 K. Lattice-matched ZnBeSe (Eg=2.82 eV) and ZnMgBeSe (Eg=2.975 eV) layers show narrower XRD peaks, the FWHM values of which are 64 and 21 arcsec, respectively. The variation of FWHM of x-ray rocking curve due to ...