I dont think so. III-V materials are very defect intolerant and therefore require single crystals to operate effectively, especially in regard to quantum wells. Magnetron sputtering can only produce polycrystalline materials, so the material's electronic properties will be dictated by grain boundaries.

but epitaxy and defect free films (?) are made in Linkoeping university (L.Hultmann) and at Seitz-Lab in Illinois (J.Greene) with sputtering !

So with the better equipment, yes you can.

That is all about of the research in low-pressure cold plasma, how to have the "industrial" device to be able to control Ion-Atoms-Temperatures-Energies independently and with the highest throughput.

The PECVD may have the better chances now, because we are close to the perfect independence of ion-atoms and almost energy. But we rely on Metal-organics or Cl presursor, Cl or C chemistry needs to be adressed.

as for PVD, sputtering may be on the right way with Hipims, and both Labs (S&US) show it is possible to run independent ion-atom even at low energies, but may be we go back to evaporation with e-beam ionisation.. (some do at FhG FEP, not for epi though)

So yes, wanting electronic materials by sputtering is really a challenge, but not impossible.

Still CVD and ALD are today the techniques of choice for the growth of electronic materials.

Thank you Adam! Thank you Lukas! I'm interested because at the moment I have access only to sputtering systems, not to CVD neither to ALD, and I really want to start growing heterostructure devices, to characterize and compare them with my models. The first idea was to grow TiO2-Cu2O layers, but I would prefer type I heterojunctions... some suggestion? Thanks again!

Hi,

I think InAs/GaAs may be difficult by sputtering due to high lattice mismatch. You could try InGaAs/GaAs starting with lower indium concentration. My alternate suggestion would be to go for nitrides rather than arsenides....

Hi Dhamodaran, thankyou for your answer. Do you have experience growing N-based heterostructures by sputtering? Which materials would you suggest in order to get type-I junctions? It's a very good idea, thanks!

Hi Ariel,

I have worked on both arsenides and nitrides but not by sputtering though. As Lukas correctly suggested, the team at Linköping University have done a lot of work on epitaxy by sputtering. You can look at their site and publications for more details.

Good luck!

Thank you again Dhamodaran!

Best.