<div>Achievements in the growth of ultra-pure III-V semiconductor materials using state of the art molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) machine has led to the discovery of new physics and technological innovations. High mobility two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) embedded in GaAs/Al_xGa_1−xAs heterostructures provides an unparalleled platform for many-body physics including fractional quantum Hall effect. On the other hand, single electron devices fabricated on modulation doped GaAs/Al_xGa_1−xAs heterostructures have been extensively used for fabrication of quantum devices such as spin qubit with application in quantum computing. Furthermore, epitaxial hybrid superconductor-semiconductor heterostructures with ultra clean superconductor-semiconductor interface have been grown using MBE technique to explore rare physical quantum state of the matter namely Majorana zero modes with non-abelian exchange statistics.</div><div><br></div><div><div>Chapter 1 in the manuscript starts with description of GaAs MBE system at Purdue University and continues with the modifications have been made to MBE hardware and growth conditions for growing heterostrcutures with 2DEG mobility exceeding 35 × 10⁶ cm⁻²/V s. Utilizing an ultra-high pure Ga source material and its further purification by thermal evaporation in the vacuum are determined to have major impact on growth of high mobility GaAs/Al_xGa_1−xAs heterostructures.</div></div><div><br></div><div>Chapter 2 reports a systematic study on the effect of silicon doping density on low frequency charge noise and conductance drift in laterally gated nanostructures fabricated on modulation doped GaAs/Al_xGa_1−xAs heterostructures grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE). The primary result of this study is that both charge noise and conductance drift are strongly impacted by the silicon doping used to create the two-dimensional electron gas. These findings shed light on the physical origin of the defect states responsible for charge noise and conductance drift. This is especially significant for spin qubit devices, which require minimization of conductance drift and charge noise for stable operation and good coherence. <br></div><div><br></div><div>Chapter 3 demonstrates measurements of the induced superconducting gap in 2D hybrid Al/Al_0.15In_0.85As/InAs heterostructures which is a promising platform for scaling topological qubits based on Majorana zero modes. The 2DEG lies in an InAs quantum well and is separated from the epitaxial Al layer by a barrier of Al_0.15In_0.85As with thickness d. Due to hybridization between the wave functions of 2DEG and superconductor, the strength of induced gap in the 2DEG largely depends on the barrier thickness. This chapter presents a systematic study of the strength of the induced gap in hybrid Al/Al_0.15In_0.85As/InAs superconductor/semiconductor heterostructures as a function of barrier thickness.<br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div>

<p></p><p>High mobility 2DEG (two-dimensional electron gas) confined in GaAs is a good platform to understand correlated electron systems and a promising candidate for qubit devices. For example, the non-Abelian feature of Fractional Quantum Hall state enabling topological quantum computation is only found in GaAs with high mobility. Theoretical calculations have shown that the mobility is inversely proportional to impurities in GaAs/AlGaAs heterstructures grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE). In recent MBE experiments, the source Ga was found to be more important in the limitation of mobility than Al and As. A high mobility of 35 million cm²/Vs was recently observed when an 8N Ga (total nominal impurity concentration of ~10 ppb) source was used compared to 25 million cm²/Vs for a 7N Ga source. In addition, significant mobility increase was observed after in-situ distillation of the source Ga before growth. In order to clarify the mechanism of how the distillation contributed to the Ga purification, thus resulting in the mobility increase, the MBE in-situ distillation was analyzed by molecular distillation theory. Evaporation behavior of solvent Ga was analyzed including effects of evaporation from a crucible with receding liquid depth. Then impurity removal through molecular distillation was analyzed with molecular evaporation kinetics. The remaining 7N and 8N Ga after in-situ MBE distillation and growth were elementally analyzed by ICP-MS (Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry) and compared with analyses of the starting 7N and 8N Ga from same lots. Due to the increased detection limit of ICP-MS in metal analysis, the concentrations of most impurity elements reached the detection limit of ~1-10 ppb. However, unusual high concentration of 690 ppb Ge was found in the 7N Ga, exceeding the nominal concentration of 7N (100 ppb). Significant decrease in Ge concentration was found in the comparison of initial ultra-pure Ga and remaining Ga for both grades of 7N and 8N. The significant Ge losses cannot be explained by atomic Ge evaporation due to the low vapor pressure of Ge. However, a hypothesis of Ge evaporation as GeO(g) by Ge active oxidation was proposed. In order to test the active oxidation of very dilute Ge in Ga in the MBE conditions with very low P(O₂), the equilibrium P(GeO)-P(O₂) vapor species diagram was calculated from thermodynamics. The analysis shows that even very dilute Ge in Ga of ~ 1 ppm concentration can be <a>actively oxidized in the extremely low P(O₂) of MBE</a>. In order to prove active oxidation of Ge, molecular distillation of 7N Ga was performed in <a>a specially constructed high vacuum chamber. The 7N Ga with unusual high Ge concentration of 440 ppb (by GDMS analysis) was distilled for 16 h at 1360 K under the starting P(O₂) of 3 x 10^-6 torr and the total pressure of 10^-5 torr. The chamber vacuum was monitored by Residual Gas Analyzer (RGA) and the residual Ga after 16 h distillation was analyzed by GDMS. In the GDMS analysis, significant Ge loss was found from 440 ppb to below the detection limit of 10 ppb, confirming Ge active oxidation hypothesis. The oxygen-assisted impurity removal in distillation also may be applicable to other impurities with high vapor pressure gaseous oxide, but low vapor pressure itself, such as Al, Si and Sn. </a></p><br><p></p>