Strain dependence on barrier material and its effect on the temperature stability of photoluminescence wavelength in self-assembled GaInAs quantum wires

Abstract

The strain-induced lateral-layer ordering process was used to fabricate GaInAs quantum wire ͑QWR͒ heterostructures on InP whose QWR layers are separated by different barrier materials. Using cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy the microstructure of the different QWR samples was studied. It was found that GaInAs QWR heterostructures with nominally lattice matched AlGaInAs barriers resulted in heavily strained QWR regions relative to the same structure with nominally lattice matched AlInAs or InP barriers. Furthermore, photoluminescence studies demonstrate that these heavily strained QWR samples with AlGaInAs barriers have a wavelength-shift rate of 0.2 to 1.0 Å/°C in the 293-360 K range. This is in comparison to GaInAs QWR samples with ternary or binary barriers and a GaInAs quantum well control sample that have wavelength-shift rates of ϳ2.5 and ϳ6.0 Å/°C, respectively. It is shown empirically that a minimum amount of strain in the GaInAs QWR/AlGaInAs barrier region is required to achieve wavelength-shift rates below 1 Å/°C.

Realization of temperature-insensitive energy band-gap based on nanowire-well quantum systems for thermally frequency-stable laser diodes

“…In consideration of this, InGaAs strained multiple-quantum-wire hetero-structures fabricated by a strain-induced lateral-layer ordering (SILO) process may be applicable. [19][20][21] Based on SILO-process-induced multiaxial strain, multiple-quantum-wire samples with moderately-strained active regions demonstrate negligible variance in band-gap with temperature. However, in order to obtain an appropriate strain, the active region usually has to be designed as multiple layers, which undoubtedly increases the complexity of sample fabrication in controlling the consistent structure and composition of each layer to achieve consistent output characteristics.…”

“…However, in order to obtain an appropriate strain, the active region usually has to be designed as multiple layers, which undoubtedly increases the complexity of sample fabrication in controlling the consistent structure and composition of each layer to achieve consistent output characteristics. 20,21 In view of the above considerations, we propose a novel approach and mechanism to overcome band-gap variation with respect to temperature, based on a kind of self-organized nanowire-well-bound quantum structure that has recently been proposed by our group. [22][23][24] This new material structure exhibits many interesting properties that differ from traditional pure quantum-confined structures (well, wires or dots), as observed in our previous work, such as super-gain spectra, high characteristic temperature, and polarization insensitivity.…”

“…However, in order to obtain an appropriate strain, the active region usually has to be designed as multiple layers, which undoubtedly increases the complexity of sample fabrication in controlling the consistent structure and composition of each layer to achieve consistent output characteristics. 20,21…”