Photoluminescence probing of interface evolution with annealing in InGa(N)As/GaAs single quantum wells

Journal Article · Wed Oct 28 04:00:00 EDT 2015 · Journal of Applied Physics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4934523· OSTI ID:22492871

Shao, Jun; Qi, Zhen; Zhu, Liang; Chen, Xiren; Guo, Shaoling ^[1]; Zhao, H. ^[2]; Song, Yuxin ^[3]; Zha, F. -X. ^[4]

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1. National Laboratory for Infrared Physics, Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 200083 Shanghai (China)
2. Department of Microtechnology and Nanoscience, Chalmers University of Technology, S-41296 Göteborg (Sweden)
3. State Key Laboratory of Functional Materials for Informatics, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 200050 Shanghai (China)
4. Physics Department, Shanghai University, 200444 Shanghai (China)

The effects of thermal annealing on the interfaces of InGa(N)As/GaAs single quantum wells (SQWs) are investigated by excitation-, temperature-, and magnetic field-dependent photoluminescence (PL). The annealing at 750 °C results in more significant blueshift and narrowing to the PL peak than that at 600 °C. Each of the PL spectra can be reproduced with two PL components: (i) the low-energy component (LE) keeps energetically unchanged, while the high-energy component (HE) moves up with excitation and shows at higher energy for the In{sub 0.375}Ga{sub 0.625}As/GaAs but crosses over with the LE at a medium excitation power for the In{sub 0.375}Ga{sub 0.625}N{sub 0.012}As{sub 0.988}/GaAs SQWs. The HE is broader than the corresponding LE, the annealing at 750 °C narrows the LE and HE and shrinks their energetic separation; (ii) the PL components are excitonic, and the InGaNAs shows slightly enhanced excitonic effects relative to the InGaAs SQW; (iii) no typical S-shape evolution of PL energy with temperature is detectable, and similar blueshift and narrowing are identified for the same annealing. The phenomena are mainly from the interfacial processes. Annealing improves the intralayer quality, enhances the interfacial In-Ga interdiffusion, and reduces the interfacial fluctuation. The interfacial interdiffusion does not change obviously by the small N content and hence similar PL-component narrowing and blueshift are observed for the SQWs after a nominally identical annealing. Comparison with previous studies is made and the PL measurements under different conditions are shown to be effective for probing the interfacial evolution in QWs.

• OSTI ID: 22492871
• Journal Information: Journal of Applied Physics, Journal Name: Journal of Applied Physics Journal Issue: 16 Vol. 118; ISSN JAPIAU; ISSN 0021-8979
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ANNEALING
EXCITATION
GALLIUM ARSENIDES
INDIUM ARSENIDES
INTERFACES
PHOTOLUMINESCENCE
QUANTUM WELLS