We strongly support Guryanov’s speculation—that a thinner wetting layer is expected with quantum dots (QDs) grown by migration-enhanced epitaxy—with structural and optical measurements. InAs QDs grown by migration-enhanced molecular-beam epitaxy showed a larger size, lower density, ∼40% enhanced uniformity, ∼2 times larger aspect ratio, and a measurement temperature insensitivity of the photoluminescence linewidth compared to QDs grown by conventional molecular-beam epitaxy. The thickness of the wetting layer for the migration-enhanced epitaxial InAs QD (2.1nm) was thinner than that of the counterpart (4.0nm).
In this article, we present an in-depth study of the effects of the structural and optical properties of InAs “dots in an In0.2Ga0.8As well” (DWELL) and InAs “dots in an asymmetric In0.2Ga0.8As well” (asym. DWELL) grown by migration-enhanced molecular beam epitaxy. The energy spacing (ΔE1) between the ground-state and the first-excited-state transitions increases from 66 meV for the DWELL to 73 meV for the asym. DWELL. These results are consistent with ΔE1 measured by photoluminescence excitation and the values of activation energy fitting. The photoluminescence linewidth of the asym. DWELL (40 meV) is narrower than that of the DWELL (70 meV), which shows superior uniformity in the former over the latter. The trends of the properties of the DWELL and the asym. DWELL deduced from the structural properties are in good agreement with those from the optical properties. From the results, it is strongly supported that the asym. DWELL is more suitable for application to long wavelength optical communication than the DWELL counterpart.
Nanometer scale thin InAs layer has been incorporated between Si (100) substrate and GaAs/Al0.3Ga0.7As multiple quantum well (MQW) nanostructure in order to reduce the defects generation during the growth of GaAs buffer layer on Si substrate. Observations based on atomic force microscopy (AFM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) suggest that initiation and propagation of defect at the Si/GaAs interface could be suppressed by incorporating thin (1 nm in thickness) InAs layer. Consequently, the microstructure and resulting optical properties improved as compared to the MQW structure formed directly on Si substrate without the InAs layer. It was also observed that there exists some limit to the desirable thickness of the InAs layer since the MQW structure having thicker InAs layer (4 nm-thick) showed deteriorated properties.
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