Epitaxial Growth and Interfacial Microstructures of PbSe Thin Film on CdSe Substrate

The cubic-structured PbSe thin films were epitaxially grown in molecular beam epitaxy reactor onhexagonal-structured CdSe (0001) substrate.The interfacial microstructures were characterized with X-ray diffraction and high resolution transmission electron microscopy.The preliminary results show that in spite of the different symmetries and the lattice mismatch between PbSe (100) and CdSe (0001), the well-defined, highly epitaxial interfacial structures were synthesized.To be specific, the PbSe110//CdSe (0010110 epitaxial relationship exists.The PbSe thin films showed mosaic characteristics with in-plane PbSe grains grown in three preferential orientations; and the grain boundaries make an angle of 30°.We suggest that the PbSe thin films epitaxially grown on CdSe (0001) substrate may be of some technological interest in fabrication of optoelectronic devices.