Band crossing in isovalent semiconductor alloys with large size mismatch: First-principles calculations of the electronic structure of Bi and N incorporated GaAs

For large size- and chemical-mismatched isovalent semiconductor alloys, such as N and Bi substitution on As sites in GaAs, isovalent defect levels or defect bands are introduced. The evolution of the defect states as a function of the alloy concentration is usually described by the popular phenomenological band anticrossing (BAC) model. Using first-principles band-structure calculations we show that at the impurity limit the N-(Bi)-induced impurity level is above (below) the conduction- (valence-) band edge of GaAs. These trends reverse at high concentration, i.e., the conduction-band edge of GaAs1-xNx becomes an N-derived state and the valence-band edge of GaAs1-xBix becomes a Bi-derived state, as expected from their band characters. We show that this band crossing phenomenon cannot be described by the popular BAC model but can be naturally explained by a simple band broadening picture.

Evaluation of both composition and strain distributions in InGaN epitaxial film using x-ray diffraction techniques

The composition and stain distributions in the InGaN epitaxial films are jointly measured by employing various x-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques, including out-of-plane XRD at special planes, in-plane grazing incidence XRD, and reciprocal space mapping (RSM). It is confirmed that the measurement of (204) reflection allows a rapid access to estimate the composition without considering the influence of biaxial strain. The two-dimensional RSM checks composition and degree of strain relaxation jointly, revealing an inhomogeneous strain distribution profile along the growth direction. As the film thickness increases from 100 nm to 450 nm, the strain status of InGaN films gradually transfers from almost fully strained to fully relaxed state and then more in atoms incorporate into the film, while the near-interface region of InGaN films remains pseudomorphic to GaN.

Room-Temperature Continuous-Wave Operation of InGaN-Based Blue-Violet Laser Diodes with a Lifetime of 15.6 Hours

We report our recent progress of investigations on InGaN-based blue-violet laser diodes (LDs). The room-temperature (RT) cw operation lifetime of LDs has extended to longer than 15.6 h. The LD structure was grown on a c-plane free-standing (FS) GaN substrate by metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). The typical threshold current and voltage of LD under RT cw operation are 78 mA and 6.8 V, respectively. The experimental analysis of degradation of LD performances suggests that after aging treatment, the increase of series resistance and threshold current can be mainly attributed to the deterioration of p-type ohmic contact and the decrease of internal quantum efficiency of multiple quantum well (MQW), respectively.

Abnormal photoabsorption in high resistance GaN epilayer

Unintentionally doped GaN epilayers are grown by the metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). Photovoltaic (PV) spectroscopy shows that there appears an abnormal photoabsorption in some undoped GaN films with high resistance. The peak energy of the absorption spectrum is smaller than the intrinsic energy band gap of GaN. This phenomenon may be related to exciton absorption. Then metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) Schottky photodetectors are fabricated on these high resistance epilayers. The photo spectrum responses are different when the light individually irradiates each of the two electrodes with the photodetector which are differently biased. When the excitation light irradiates around the reverse biased Schottky junction, the responsivity is almost one order of magnitude larger than that around the forward biased junction. Furthermore, when the excitation light irradiates the reverse biased Schottky junction, the peak energy of the spectrum has a prominent red-shift compared with the peak energy of the spectrum measured with the excitation light irradiating the forward biased Schottky junction. The shift value is about 28 meV, and it is found to be insensitive to temperature. According to the analyses of the distribution of the electric field within the MSM device and the different dependences of the response on the electric field intensity between the free carriers and excitons, a reliable explanation for the different response among various areas is proposed.

Far-field and beam characteristics of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

We have determined the far-field patterns and beam parameters of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) with different structures. The results show that the window diameter and the active-layer aperture of VCSELs strongly influence laser far-field distributions and beam characteristics; for VCSELs with small window omega=5 mu m, only one dominant lobe has been observed in the far-field profiles, even though injected current was increased up to 2 Ith; and the smaller the ratio of the window diameter to the active-layer aperture, the larger is the far-field divergence. The laser structure dependence of the K factor has also been studied. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.

An asymmetric broad waveguide structure for a 0.98-μm high-conversion-efficiency diode laser

A novel asymmetric broad waveguide diode laser structure was designed for high power conversion efficiency (PCE). The internal quantum efficiency, the series resistance, and the thermal resistance were theoretically optimized. The series resistance and the thermal resistance were greatly decreased by optimizing the thickness of the P-waveguide and the P-cladding layers. The internal quantum efficiency was increased by introducing a novel strain-compensated GaAs_0.9P_0.1/InGaAs quantum well. Experimentally, a single 1-cm bar with 20% fill factor and 900 μm cavity length was mounted P-side down on a microchannel-cooled heatsink, and a peak PCE of 60% is obtained at 26.3-W continuous wave output power.The results prove that this novel asymmetric waveguide structure design is an efficient approach to improve the PCE.

A novel polarization-insensitive semiconductor optical amplifier structure with large 3dB bandwidth

A novel approach to achieving a polarization-insensitive semiconductor optical amplifier is presented. The active layer consists of graded tensile strained bulk-like structure. which can not only enhance TM mode material gain and further realize polarization-insensitivity, but also get a large 3dB bandwidth due to different strain introduced into the active layer. 3dB bandwidth more than 40nm. 65nm has been obtained in die experiment and theory, respectively. The characteristics of such polarization insensitive structure have been analyzed, The influence of the amount of strain and of the thickness of strain layer on the polarization insensitivity has been discussed.