Dependence of the electrical and optical properties on growth interruption in AlAs/In0.53Ga0.47As/InAs resonant tunneling diodes

Abstract

The dependence of interface roughness of pseudomorphic AlAs/In0.53Ga0.47As/InAs resonant tunneling diodes [RTDs] grown by molecular beam epitaxy on interruption time was studied by current-voltage [I-V] characteristics, photoluminescence [PL] spectroscopy, and transmission electron microscopy [TEM]. We have observed that a splitting in the quantum-well PL due to island formation in the quantum well is sensitive to growth interruption at the AlAs/In0.53Ga0.47As interfaces. TEM images also show flatter interfaces with a few islands which only occur by applying an optimum value of interruption time. The symmetry of I-V characteristics of RTDs with PL and TEM results is consistent because tunneling current is highly dependent on barrier thickness and interface roughness.

Structural and electrical transport properties of MOVPE-grown pseudomorphic AlAs/InGaAs/InAs resonant tunneling diodes on InP substrates

“…10,11) Further study is necessary to clarify the causes, and theoretical simulations of I-V characteristics, including roughness scattering effect and other asymmetric properties of DB structures, will be required. In any case, the degree of asymmetry in the I-V characteristics of our samples is comparable to that reported in the literature [10][11][12]31) and does not matter in the practical use of RTDs.…”

“…Figure 7 summarizes J P and PVR values of various AlAs/ InGaAs/InAs RTDs reported in the literature 4,6,7,12,[31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38] and in this work. The data points in this work are from the values in Table III.…”

Photoluminescence Characterisation of High Current Density Resonant Tunnelling Diodes for Terahertz Applications

“…This technique is typically applied for the evaluation of performance of optical devices on the wafer scale [28], but can be equally well applied to probe epitaxy of electronic devices with a direct band-gap structure. However, the optical properties of high current density InGaAs/AlAs/InP RTDs remain so far relatively unexplored [29]- [31].…”