Effect of Substrate Misorientation on the Structural and Optical Characteristics of In-Rich InGaAs/GaAsP Quantum Wells

InGaAs quantum well (QW) lasers have attracted significant attention owing to their considerable potential for applications in optical communications; however, the relationship between the misorientation of the substrates used to grow InGaAs QWs and the structural and optical properties of QWs is st...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Zhiwei Li, Yugang Zeng, Yue Song, Jianwei Zhang, Yinli Zhou, Yongqiang Ning, Li Qin, Lijun Wang
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2021-09-01
Series:Applied Sciences
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/11/18/8639
Description
Summary:InGaAs quantum well (QW) lasers have attracted significant attention owing to their considerable potential for applications in optical communications; however, the relationship between the misorientation of the substrates used to grow InGaAs QWs and the structural and optical properties of QWs is still ambiguous. In this study, In-rich InGaAs/GaAsP single QWs were grown in the same run via metal organic chemical vapor deposition on GaAs (001) substrates misoriented by 0°, 2°, and 15° toward (111). The effects of substrate misorientation on the crystal quality and structural properties of InGaAs/GaAsP were investigated by X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy. The 0° substrate exhibited the least lattice relaxation, and with increasing misorientation, the degree of lattice relaxation increased. The optical properties of the InGaAs/GaAsP QWs were investigated using temperature-dependent photoluminescence. An abnormal S-shaped variation of the peak energy and inverse evolution of the spectral bandwidth were observed at low temperatures for the 2° substrate, caused by the localization potentials due to the In-rich clusters. Surface morphology observations revealed that the growth mode varied with different miscuts. Based on the experimental results obtained in this study, a mechanism elucidating the effect of substrate miscuts on the structural and optical properties of QWs was proposed and verified.
ISSN:2076-3417