10.1.9 Epitaxy

Strictly speaking epitaxial growth is a CVD process. It is widely used for manufacturing bipolar integrated circuits and differs from other CVD processes in the sense that epitaxial layers ideally share the crystal structure of the substrate. They must be grown so slowly so that the new molecules adhering to the surface can align with the underlying crystal structure. Usually dopants are added during the growth process. Adding dopants during this process is called in-situ doping.