Structural Defects in GaP Crystals and Their Electrical and Optical Effects

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Abstract
Oriented single crystals of GaP were plastically deformed and the active slip planes and the individual dislocations lying in them have been identified by etching, by preferential precipitation (decoration), by observations of surface irregularities, and from strain birefringence singularities. Evidence of polygonization is presented and the nodes of planar intersecting dislocation networks can be seen by decoration. Crystals grown by the floating‐zone technique contain 105–106 dislocations/cm2 which result from a quench—anneal cycle during the growth process. These dislocations as well as a high degree of residual elastic strain cannot be moved by annealing. This is not true of epitaxial crystals grown from the vapor phase on GaAs seeds. Some indications of growth from active Frank—Read sources have been obtained for these epitaxial crystals. Precipitation, often unintentional, can be detected optically from Rayleigh scattering. Because minority carrier diffusion lengths in GaP are very short, dislocations and a dispersed second phase generally do not perturb the electrical properties. This is not true of some alloyed p‐n junctions.

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