Pulsed Laser Deposition of Epitaxial SrTiO3/Sr3Al2O6 Templates as a Water-Soluble Sacrificial Layer for GaAs Growth and Lift-Off

Despite the record-high efficiency of GaAs solar cells, their terrestrial application is limited due to both the particularly high costs related to the required single-crystal substrates and epitaxial growth. A water-soluble lift-off layer could reduce costs by avoiding the need for toxic and dangerous etchants, substrate repolishing, and expensive process steps. Sr₃Al₂O₆ (SAO) is a water-soluble cubic oxide, and SrTiO₃ (STO) is a perovskite oxide, where a_SAO ≈ 4 × a_STO ≈ (2√2)a_GaAs. Here, the pulsed laser-deposited epitaxial growth of SrTiO₃/Sr₃Al₂O₆ templates on STO and Ge substrates for epitaxial GaAs growth was investigated, where SAO works as a sacrificial layer and STO protects the hygroscopic SAO during substrate transfer between deposition chambers. We identified that the SAO film quality is strongly dependent on the growth temperature and the O₂ partial pressure, where either a high T or a high P(O₂) improves the quality. XRD spectra of the films with optimized deposition parameters showed an epitaxial STO/SAO stack aligned to the STO (100) substrate, and TEM analysis revealed that the grown films were epitaxially crystalline throughout the thickness. The STO/SAO growth on Ge substrates at a high T with no intentional O₂ flow resulted in some nonepitaxial grains and surface pits, likely due to partial Ge oxidation. GaAs was grown by metalorganic vapor-phase epitaxy (MOVPE) on STO/SAO/STO templates. Lift-off after dissolving the sacrificial SAO in water resulted in free-standing ⟨001⟩ preferentially oriented polycrystalline GaAs.