Sublattice Reversal in GaAs/Si/GaAs (100) Heterostructures by Molecular Beam Epitaxy

Abstract

Sublattice reversal in III-V compound semiconductors grown on group-IV epitaxial layers on III-V substrates has been proposed for fabricating nonlinear optical devices with domain-inverted compound semiconductor structures. Sublattice reversal epitaxy is demonstrated in the GaAs/Si/GaAs (100) system and confirmed by reflection high energy electron diffraction, cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy, anisotropic etching, and optical second-harmonic generation measurements. The present sublattice reversal seems to be assisted by self annihilation of antiphase domains generated at GaAs/Si interfaces.

Sublattice reversal epitaxy: a novel technique for fabricating domain-inverted compound semiconductor structures

“…In order to demonstrate sublattice reversal epitaxy, we have grown GaAs on GaAs (100) substrates with an Si intermediate layer (GaAs/Si/GaAs) [13] using a solid source molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) system equipped with a high-temperature K cell for Si effusion. The substrates used were (100) GaAs wafers misoriented by 48 toward [011].…”

Thick orientation-patterned GaAs grown by low-pressure HVPE on fusion-bonded templates

“…More sophisticated templates are now produced using photolithography to define the QPM period so that even short coherence lengths are possible. For these templates a method of initiating the inverted growth axis is required and for this, polar on nonpolar thin-film heteroepitaxy [12,13] has been used. Carefully controlled conditions during molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) yield growth of GaAs/Ge/GaAs on vicinal substrates where the top GaAs layer consists of singledomain material, inverted with respect to the substrate.…”

“…Photolithography and etching are employed to pattern a grating structure of mesas and trenches with the appropriate QPM periodicity for the desired nonlinear optical interaction. The resulting structure is subsequently used as a template for regrowth by MBE [12,13], metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) [14], atmospheric-pressure hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE) [15], or low-pressure HVPE [16]. MBE and MOCVD offer growth rates suitable for fabrication of waveguide structures; however, the higher growth rates available using HVPE are needed to produce the 4500 mm-thick apertures desired for high-power laser frequency conversion.…”

Growth of GaAs with orientation-patterned structures for nonlinear optics

“…GaAs is a more attractive material for nonlinear optical-wavelength conversion because of its high nonlinear coefficient, broad IR transparency range, and well-developed epitaxial growth technologies. Because of the isotropic nature of GaAs, birefringent phase matching (BPM) is not possible in conventional AlGaAs waveguides, thus various artificial approaches must be adopted, such as form-BPM [3][4][5][6], modal phase matching (MPM) [7,8], and quasi-phase matching (QPM) [9][10][11]. However, no efficient nonlinear waveguide devices based on GaAs/AlGaAs system have been built to date, regardless of the phase matching approaches, because of high waveguide propagation losses.…”

“…In a lossless waveguide, the generated nonlinear power increases quadratically with device length under undepleted pumps, while in a lossy waveguide, optical power is completely attenuated in a long waveguide, thus an optimal length (generally as short QPM waveguides based on orientation-patterned GaAs (OP-GaAs) are highly promising but they are also limited by the high loss due to the scattering of the corrugated waveguide core. The loss has been reported to be 30-100 dB/cm at $770 nm [9][10][11]. The SHG conversion efficiencies for doubling 1.55-mm-wavelength radiation in MBE-grown waveguides are extremely low, $10 À4 À 10 À3 W À1 , because of this high waveguide corrugation.…”