Mask pattern interference in AlGaInAs selective area metal-organic vapor-phase epitaxy: Experimental and modeling analysis

Abstract

We studied selective area growth modeling and characterization of the AlGaInAs material system. We used a three-dimensional vapor phase diffusion model to extract the effective diffusion lengths of Al, Ga, and In species from measured thickness profiles of the three binaries AlAs, GaAs, and InP. Our growth conditions yield to 50, 85, and 10 m for Al, Ga, and In, respectively. Based on these values, we achieved a precise prediction of AlGaInAs thickness, composition, band gap, and biaxial strain variations in different selective area growth conditions. Particular attention was paid to the influence of neighboring cells in the case of high mask density. This configuration occurs in practical component mask layout. High mask density leads to interferences between masked cells and enhances the effect of the long diffusion length of aluminum and gallium species. Then, the biaxial strain is tensile shifted and the band gap is blue shifted in the vicinity of a mask, compared to reference material features grown away from the mask. High-resolution micro-photoluminescence and optical interferometer microscopy measurements confirmed the validity of simulated band gap and thickness variations for both bulk and multi-quantum well layers.

Demonstration of planar thick InP layers by selective MOVPE

“…1). The patterns were very long (900 mm) and sufficiently separated to avoid any influence on each other [4]. The different samples were selectively grown with various temperature and pressure conditions which will be described latter in the paper.…”

Investigation of 1.3 μm AlGaInAs multi‐quantum wells for electro‐absorption modulated laser

“…A simple approach to model SAG is to consider only vapor phase diffusion (VPD) as the source material of supply. If no interaction is assumed between group III elements, each binary element can be considered to have an independent growth enhancement ratio that leads to identification of the composition and the growth enhancement ratio of the alloy in the vicinity of the mask [3].…”

“…Monolithic integration on InP is a way to facilitate the fabrication of complex Photonic Integrated Circuits (PIC) provided with multiple functions. We have sucessfully shown that InP actually provides the lowest-size full-monolithic transmitters (TX) for complex modulation formats (m-PSK, QAM etc) using a novel prefixed optical phase switching by low drive using EAM [3,4,5]. While keeping simple the transmitter and its driving electronics, it has the advantage over the more standard Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM) format to suppress the optical carrier and to provide better energy efficiency [6].…”

Analytical solution of thickness variations in selective area growth by organometallic chemical vapor deposition

“…4,9,[13][14][15][16][17] Both situations involve gasphase diffusion and hence solutions of the Laplace equation, although in SAG the precursors are supplied at a plane located at a distance h above the wafer so that two dimensions are involved instead of one. In the numerical calculations growth was assumed to be diffusion-limited, and the results included numerical evaluation of the local gas-phase concentrations n͑r ជ͒ of the precursor within the stagnant layer and d as a function of r in the window region.…”

“…These boundary conditions are used in the numerical simulations as well. 4,9,[13][14][15][16][17] We now project the concentration n͑x , y͒ of ͑a͒ into the ͑u , v͒ coordinate system. We use the transformation 21 a͒ Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.…”