The technique of MOCVD was first introduced in the
late 1960s for the deposition of compound semiconductors
from the vapor phase. The pioneers of the technique,
Manasevit and Simpson [14.35] were interested in
a method for depositing optoelectronic semiconductors
such as GaAs onto different substrates such as spinel
and sapphire. The near-equilibrium techniques such as
LPE and chloride VPE were not suitable for nucleation
onto a surface chemically very different to the compound
being deposited. These pioneers found that if
they used combinations of an alkyl organometallic for
the Group III element and a hydride for the Group V
element, then films of GaAs could be deposited onto
a variety of different surfaces