Metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) material growth and application to InP-based electronic devices

High electron mobility transistors (HEMTs), heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs), PIN, mixer and multiplier diodes can benefit tremendously from their design and realization on InP-based material systems. The advantages of InP-based device approaches are multifold and include high mobility and velocity overshoot, as necessary for high-speed operation, heterojunctions appropriate for two-dimensional carrier gases with excellent confinement, bipolar designs with small turn-on voltage and enhanced base and collector transport, and diodes with low-power requirement. The most popular techniques used for realizing the above devices are molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), chemical beam epitaxy (CBE) and metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). Although MBE has enabled the first demonstration of many of these devices and led to devices with excellent electrical performance, semiconductor device developments using MOCVD showed in most cases comparable electrical performance. Compared to both MBE and CBE, MOCVD also offers a very attractive solution in terms of manufacturing and production needs. Typical features of MOCVD include growth of large batches of wafers, high growth rates, and almost atmospheric growth conditions. This paper reviews the approaches used for MOCVD grown InP-based heterostructures and their application in the demonstration of high-performance electronic devices.