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We have investigated the mechanisms of GaAs1-xNx film growth by plasma-assisted molecular-beam epitaxy. A comparison of in situ reflection high-energy electron diffraction and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), with ex situ atomic force microscopy, reveals a temperature-dependent interplay between surface and step-edge diffusion. At low temperatures, layer-by-layer growth is observed, presumably due to limited adatom surface mobility. As the temperature increases, the interplay between surface and step-edge diffusion leads to multilayer growth. For sufficiently high temperatures, adatoms overcome the step-edge diffusion barrier, resulting in layer-by-layer growth once again. The temperature range for multilayer growth is influenced by the Ga flux and may be narrowed by using As2. Using in situ STM, we quantified the activation energies for Ga surface diffusion, Ed, and step-edge diffusion, Ee, during layer-by-layer GaAsN growth. We estimate Ed=0.75 and 0.96 eV for growth using As4 and As2, respectively. Thus, the narrowing of the multilayer growth temperature range is likely due to the decrease in Ga surface diffusion length through the use of As2 in lieu of As4. Furthermore, we estimate Ee=80 meV, larger than what has been reported for GaAs growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have investigated nitrogen incorporation mechanisms in dilute nitride GaAsN alloys grown by plasma-assisted molecular-beam epitaxy. A comparison of nuclear reaction analysis and Rutherford backscattering spectrometry in channeling and nonchanneling conditions reveals significant composition-dependent incorporation of N into nonsubstitutional sites, presumably as either N–N or N–As split interstitials. Furthermore, we identify the (2×1) reconstruction as the surface structure which leads to the highest substitutional N incorporation, likely due to the high number of group V sites per unit area available for N–As surface exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]