Se species in metalorganic molecular beam epitaxy of ZnSe

Growth of ZnSe on GaAs by metalorganic molecular beam epitaxy with dimethylselenide and metal Zn sources is investigated. We show that the decomposition of dimethylselenide is pyrolithic and achieve cracking efficiencies as high as 90% at a cracker temperature of 1200 °C. With an efficient cracker high growth rates of ZnSe are obtained, limited only by the flux of dimethylselenide. Mass spectroscopic investigations demonstrate that atomic Se is the dominant group VI species. The high sticking probability of Zn to atomic Se results in metalorganic molecular beam epitaxy with high growth efficiency, exceeding that of conventional molecular beam epitaxy.