The hole mobility of Be-doped ( ∼ 2 × 1017 cm−3) AlxGa1−xAs, for x=0–1, is analyzed both theoretically and experimentally. Alloy scattering is very important, and in fact reduces the hole mobility from 150 to less than 90 cm2/V s at x=0.5. The main parameter in the alloy scattering formulation, the alloy potential Eal, is found to be about 0.5 eV for p-type AlxGa1−xAs.

The effects of strain and surface composition on cation incorporation rates in III–V molecular-beam epitaxy are examined for three growth systems. In initial stages of strained InAs on GaAs(001) heteroepitaxy, lattice-mismatch strain is found to reduce the cation incorporation rate (relative to that of InAs homoepitaxy) by lowering the energy barrier associated with cation desorption. The magnitude of this energy barrier is found to depend on surface reconstruction. In unstrained InAs homoepitaxy, the energy barrier associated with In desorption is found to be 4.0 eV; this value is found to be in excellent agreement with predictions based on simple bond energy scaling arguments applied to results obtained for GaAs homoepitaxy. In unstrained growth of AlxGa1−xAs on GaAs(001), surface chemical composition is found to affect the Ga incorporation rate in a complicated manner: the presence of Al results in an increase in the Ga incorporation coefficient even though the energy barrier associated with Ga loss is reduced. These and related results are shown to be consistent with a model in which: (i) surface Ga and Al atoms compete for cation desorption sites, and (ii) surface Al atoms undergo exchange reactions with underyling Ga atoms.

Reflection high-energy electron diffraction and mass-spectrometry were used to study the incorporation behavior of indium (In) in the molecular beam epitaxy of InAs on InAs (001) and GaAs (001) surfaces. For InAs homoepitaxy the activation energy, Ea, for In loss is found to be 4.0±0.1 eV; for the initial stages of strained (Δα/α=7%) InAs on GaAs heteroepitaxy, Ea varies from 0.9 to 2.6±0.1 eV and depends only on surface reconstruction. These results are discussed in terms of bnding energetics and strain effects.