Investigation of initial growth stages at molecular-beam epitaxy of CdTe on GaAs(100)

Initial growth stages of CdTe films on GaAs(100) substrates have been studied as a function of the starting substrate state, magnitude of the molecular flux and substrate temperature at the epitaxy. It is shown that at a preset molecular flux magnitude depending on the substrate temperature from the surface of which the oxide was preliminary removed by heating in vacuum there can form a CdTe film with the orientation (111) (at relatively low temperatures), with orientation (001) (at relatively high temperatures) and in the form of orientation mixture in the intermediate temperature interval. A model has been proposed for the process of CdTe film orientation change that considers reconstruction of surface complexes on the base of Te and Ga. Change of thermodynamic functions for the reconstruction process have been estimated