Aluminum antimonide (AlSb) layers with various thickness ranged from about 8 to 250 nm were grown at 520 degrees C as the buffer layer for the heteroepitaxial growth of InSb films on Si(001) substrates. InSb films were grown at 400 degrees C on the AlSb/Si(001), and were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscope, as a function of the thickness of the AlSb layer. The XRD patterns of the InSb films grown on the AlSb layers show that even if the AlSb buffer layer, whose surface consists of many islands, is as thin as 8 nm, it is effective for the heteroepitaxial growth of InSb film on a Si(001) substrate, and the AlSb layer of about 40 nrn is thick enough to grow heteroepitaxial InSb films on the Si(001) substrate. The results of the phi scan patterns of the films show that InSb films on a Si(001) substrate with AlSb buffer layer were heteroepitaxially grown without any rotation in the growth plane. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.