Abstract: The growth by molecular beam epitaxy of high quality GaAs epilayers on nonmisoriented GaAs(111)B substrates is reported. Growth control of the GaAs epilayers is achieved via in situ, real time measurement of the specular beam intensity of reflection high-energy electron diffraction (RHEED). Static surface phase maps of GaAs(111)B have been generated for a variety of incident As flux and substrate temperature conditions. The dependence of GaAs(111)B surface reconstruction phases on growth parameters is discussed. The (√19 × √19) surface reconstruction is identified to be the optimum starting surface for the latter growth of mirror-smooth epilayers. Regimes of growth conditions are optimized in terms of the static surface phase diagram and the temporal RHEED intensity oscillations.

Key words: GaAs(111)B,  RHEED,  surface reconstruction,  epilayer