Room-temperature phototransmittance and photoluminescence characterization of the AlGaAs/InGaAs/GaAs pseudomorphic high electron mobility transistor structures with varied quantum well compositional profiles

Abstract

We have studied the effects of the two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) and indium surface segregation in four pseudomorphic AlGaAs/InGaAs/GaAs high electron mobility transistor structures using room-temperature phototransmittance (PT) and photoluminescence (PL) measurements. The PT spectra from the InGaAs modulation-doped quantum well channel can be accounted for by a lineshape function which is the first-derivative of a step-like two-dimensional density of states and a Fermi level filling factor. A detailed lineshape fit makes it possible to evaluate the Fermi energy, and hence the concentration of 2DEG in addition to the energies of the intersubband transitions. The lowest-lying intersubband transition has been confirmed by a comparison of the PT and PL spectra. From the difference of intersubband transition energies, the surface segregation effects of indium atoms are demonstrated.