Beryllium oxide (BeO), which has excellent electrical insulating characteristics and high thermal stability, is a promising gate dielectric and interface passivation layer (IPL), because of its high energy bandgap (10.6 eV) and short bond distance between Be and 0 atoms. In a previous study, we demonstrated the excellent electrical and physical characteristics of BeO grown after atomic layer deposition (ALD) on Si and GaAs substrates. Here we report, for the first time, ALD growth of crystalline BeO as a potential high-k gate dielectric and IPL. From TEM, SAD, RHEED, and XRD, we have found that highly crystalline BeO thin film may be grown in a wurtzite structure as a (101) plane on a Si (100) oriented surface. We have also investigated a germanium epitaxial layer grown on BeO as a semiconductor-on-insulator (SOI) application, and the crystallinity of BeO on a GaAs (100) substrate for III-V MOS device applications. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.