Near-Infrared Femtosecond Laser for Studying the Strain in Si1-xGex Alloy Films via Second-Harmonic Generation

The second-harmonic generation (SHG) from Si1-xGex alloy films has been investigated by near-infrared femtosecond laser. Recognized by s-out polarized SHG intensity versus rotational angle of sample, the crystal symmetry of the fully strained Si0.83Ge0.17 alloy is found changed from the O-h to the C-2 point group due to the inhomogeneity of the strain. Calibrated by double crystal X-ray diffraction, the strain-induced chi((2)) is estimated at 5.7 x 10(-7) esu. According to the analysis on p-in/s-out SHG, the strain-relaxed Si0.10Ge0.90 alloy film is confirmed to be not fully relaxed, and the remaining strain is quantitatively determined to be around 0.1%.

Low-temperature (10 K) infrared measurement of interstitial oxygen in heavily antimony-doped silicon via wafer thinning

A new technique is reported for the rapid determination of interstitial oxygen in heavily Sb-doped silicon. This technique includes wafer thinning and low-temperature 10 K infrared measurement on highly thinned wafers. The fine structure of the interstitial oxygen absorption band around 1136 cm(-1) is obtained. Our results show that this method efficiently reduces free-carrier absorption interference, allowing a high reliability of measurement, and can be used at resistivities down to 1 x 10(-2) Omega cm for heavily Sb-doped silicon.

Long period two-dimensional gratings for 8-12 mu m quantum well infrared photodetectors

By considering all possible high order diffracted waves, the authors investigate the spectral response of two-dimensional gratings for quantum well infrared photodetectors (QWIPs). A new method is proposed that using long period gratings may improve grating quality and reduce the resulting cross talk in grating-coupled QWIPs. A sensitivity analysis indicates that the influence of variation of the grating constant on the coupling efficiency is less sensitive for the long period gratings than for the short ones. A large coupling efficiency has been demonstrated for long period gratings. The calculated wide grating response spectra are in good agreement with the experiment result. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.

Normal incident infrared absorption from InGaAs/GaAs quantum dot superlattice

The authors report for the first time, normal incident infrared absorption around the wavelength of 13-15 mu m from a 20 period InGaAs/GaAs quantum dot supperlatice (QDS). The structure of a QDS has been-confirmed by cross-section transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and by a photoluminescence spectrum (PL). This opens the way to high performance 8-14 mu m quantum dot infrared detectors.

A voltage-controlled tunable two-color infrared photodetector using GaAs/AlAs/GaAlAs and GaAs/GaAlAs stacked multiquantum wells

A voltage-controlled tunable two-color infrared detector with photovoltaic (PV) and photoconductive (PC) dual-mode operation at 3-5 mu m and 8-14 mu m using GaAs/AlAs/AlGaAs double barrier quantum wells (DBQWs) and bound-to-continuum GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells is demonstrated. The photoresponse peak of the photovoltaic GaAs/AlAs/GaAlAs DBQWs is at 5.3 mu m, and that of the photoconductive GaAs/GaAlAs quantum wells is at 9.0 mu m. When the two-color detector is under a zero bias, the spectral response at 5.3 mu m is close to saturate and the peak detectivity at 80 K can reach 1.0X10(11) cmHz(1/2)/W, while the spectral photoresponsivity at 9.0 mu m is absolutely zero completely. When the external voltage of the two-color detector is changed to 2.0 V, the spectral photoresponsivity at 5.3 mu m becomes zero while the spectral photoresponsivity at 9.0 mu m increases comparable to that at 5.3 mu m under zero bias, and the peak detectivity (9.0 mu m) at 80 K can reach 1.5X10(10) cmHz(1/2)/W. Strictly speaking, this is a real bias-controlled tunable two-color infrared photodetector. We have proposed a model based on the PV and PC dual-mode operation of stacked two-color QWIPs and the effects of tunneling resonance with narrow energy width of photoexcited electrons in DBQWs, which can explain qualitatively the voltage-controlled tunable behavior of the photoresponse of the two-color infrared photodetector. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.