Growth and characterization of single crystal rocksalt LaAs using LuAs barrier layers

We demonstrate the growth of high-quality, single crystal, rocksalt LaAs on III-V substrates; employing thin well-behaved LuAs barriers layers at the III-V/LaAs interfaces to suppress nucleation of other LaAs phases, interfacial reactions between GaAs and LaAs, and polycrystalline LaAs growth. This method enables growth of single crystal epitaxial rocksalt LaAs with enhanced structural and electrical properties. Temperature-dependent resistivity and optical reflectivity measurements suggest that epitaxial LaAs is semimetallic, consistent with bandstructure calculations in literature. LaAs exhibits distinct electrical and optical properties, as compared with previously reported rare-earth arsenide materials, with a room-temperature resistivity of similar to 459 mu Omega-cm and an optical transmission window >50% between similar to 3-5 mu m. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4766945]