ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the most commonly used techniques for the preparation of bulk and thin film crystals of silicon and compound semiconductor materials. It describes the growth of large single crystals of semiconductors from melts which are of approximately the same composition as the final crystal. Molecular beam epitaxy is the newest of the epitaxial growth techniques and yet in some ways it is the simplest. The growth of GaAs films on silicon substrates is an important example of epitaxial growth where the mismatch between the substrate and deposit layer is large. The chapter describes a process by which thin single crystals of the same semiconductor materials can be grown from dilute melts onto substrate wafers. It deals with the epitaxial growth of semiconductor materials on semiconductor substrates. The process of chemical vapour deposition can be described as the use of chemical reactions to create free product species which condense to form a thin deposit film on a substrate.
