Suppression of defect propagation in semiconductors by pseudomorphic layers
The propagation of defects in semiconductor heterostructures has been studied both theoretically and experimentally. The simple model shows that defects originating from lattice‐matched regions can be prevented from entering, or can be trapped by, a pseudomorphic layer, depending on the signs of the strain induced by the defect and the strain in the pseudomorphic layer. A pseudomorphic layer can therefore prevent the defect from propagating across in and entering the critical active region of a device. Experimentally, the photoluminescence intensities of Al0.4Ga0.6As/GaAs quantum wells with and without pseudomorphic In0.2Ga0.8As layers for prevention of defect propagation have been compared. GaAs substrates of high etch pit density were used to generate defects below the quantum well and silicon implantation was used to generate defects above it. The elevated temperatures during molecular‐beam‐epitaxial growth and postimplant rapid thermal annealing serve to assist in defect propagation in the respective ...
Vacancy-mediated intermixing in InAs/InP(001) quantum dots subjected to ion implantation
We have investigated the influence of defects emanating from phosphorus implantation damage in the InP capping layer on postgrowth thermally induced intermixing in self-assembled InAs/InP(001) quantum dots (QDs). Photoluminescence (PL) spectra from as-grown samples could be described as the superposition of separate PL peaks where each peak corresponded to emission from an ensemble of QDs with a particular height ranging from 4 to 13 ML. Blueshift of up to 270 meV and significant bandwidth broadening were observed in the PL spectra after ion implantation with a fluence of 5×1011−1014 cm−2 and subsequent annealing at temperatures ranging from 450 to 600 °C. From the analysis of the evolution of the QD peaks upon intermixing, which revealed the coexistence of intact QD PL and a broad PL feature related to heavily intermixed QDs, it was suggested that the bandwidth broadening resulted from spatial inhomogeneity in the compositional intermixing. In order to better understand the mechanism responsible for the ...
Low‐ and high‐field transport properties of pseudomorphic InxGa1−xAs/In0.52Al0.48As (0.53≤x≤0.65) modulation‐doped heterostructures
We have grown pseudomorphic InxGa1−xAs/In0.52Al0.48As modulation‐doped heterostructures by molecular‐beam epitaxy under carefully controlled growth conditions. Mobilities as high as 13 900, 74 000, and 134 000 cm2/V s are measured at 300, 77, and 4.2 K in a heterostructure with x=0.65. Shubnikov–de Haas measurements indicate that the change in the effective mass with increasing In is not significant and is not responsible for the enhancement in mobilities. We believe that the improvement results from reduced alloy scattering, reduced intersubband scattering, and reduced impurity scattering, all of which result from a higher conduction‐band offset and increased carrier confinement in the two‐dimensional electron gas. The high‐field electron velocities have been measured in these samples using pulsed current‐voltage and pulsed Hall measurements. A monotonic increase in velocities is observed both at 300 and 77 K with an increase of In content in the channel. Velocities of 1.55×107 and 1.87×107 cm/s are meas...