Anti-phase boundaries annihilation in the growth of GaSb on Silicon(001)

We present a study of the APB annihilation mechanism during the growth of GaSb on on-axis Si (001) substrates. We demonstrate for the first time that the APDs are buried by the main-phase domain due to the growth rate difference existing between the two domains. We experimentally quantified the growth rate difference and explored the various parameters influencing this mechanism, using an original approach based on AFM analysis of several series of samples.