Self-assembled GaAs quantum rings by MBE droplet epitaxy

Fabrication of semiconductor nanostructures such as quantum dots (QDs), quantum rings (QRs) has been considered as the important step for realization of solid state quantum information devices, including QDs single photon emission source, QRs single electron memory unit, etc. To fabricate GaAs quantum rings, we use Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) droplet technique in this report. In this droplet technique, Gallium (Ga) molecular beams are supplied initially without Arsenic (As) ambience, forming droplet-like nano-clusters of Ga atoms on the substrate, then the Arsenic beams are supplied to crystallize the Ga droplets into GaAs crystals. Because the morphologies and dimensions of the GaAs crystal are governed by the interplay between the surface migration of Ga and As adatoms and their crystallization, the shape of the GaAs crystals can be modified into rings, and the size and density can be controlled by varying the growth temperatures and As/Ga flux beam equivalent pressures(BEPs). It has been shown by Atomic force microscope (AFM) measurements that GaAs single rings, concentric double rings and coupled double rings are grown successfully at typical growth temperatures of 200 C to 300 C under As flux (BEP) of about 1.0 x 10(-6) Torr. The diameter of GaAs rings is about 30-50 nm and thickness several nm.

Kinetic Monte Carlo simulation of semiconductor quantum dot growth

Performing an event-based continuous kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) simulation, We investigate the growth conditions which are important to form semiconductor quantum dot (QD) in molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) system. The simulation results provide a detailed characterization of the atomic kinetic effects. The KMC simulation is also used to explore the effects of periodic strain to the epitaxy growth of QD. The simulation results are in well qualitative agreement with experiments.

Corrugated surfaces formed on GaAs (331)a substrates: The template for laterally ordered InGaAs nanowires

Morphology evolution of high-index (331)A surfaces during molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) growth have been investigated in order to uncover their unique physic properties and fabricate spatially ordered low dimensional nanostructures. Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) measurements have shown that the step height and terrace width of GaAs layers increase monotonically with increasing substrate temperature in conventional MBE. However, this situation is reversed in atomic hydrogen-assisted MBE, indicating that step bunching is partly suppressed. We attribute this to the reduced surface migration length of Ga adatoms with atomic hydrogen. By using the step arrays formed on GaAs (331)A surfaces as the templates, we fabricated laterally ordered InGaAs self-aligned nanowires.

Surface morphology evolution of strained InAs/GaAs(331)a films

Surface morphology evolution of strained InAs/GaAs(331)A films was systematically investigated in this paper. Under As-rich conditions, InAs elongated islands aligned along [1 (1) over bar0] are formed at a substrate temperature of 510 degrees C. We explained it as a result of the anisotropic diffusion of adatoms. Under In-rich conditions, striking change has occurred with respect to the surface morphology of the InAs layers. Instead of anisotropic InAs elongated islands, unique island-pit pairs randomly distributed on the whole surface were observed. Using cooperative nucleation mechanisms proposed by Jesson et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 1330 (1996)], we interpret the resulting surface morphology evolution.

Room temperature mobility above 2100 cm2/Vs in Al0.3Ga0.7N/AIN/GaN heterostructures grown on sapphire substrates by MOCVD

Al0.3Ga0.7N/AlN/GaN HEMT structures with significantly high mobility have been grown by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) on sapphire substrates. At room temperature (RT) a Hall mobility of 2104 cm(2)/Vs and a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) density of 1.1x10(13) cm(-2) are achieved, corresponding to a sheet resistance of 277.8 Omega/sq. The elimination of V-shaped defects were observed on Al0.3Ga0.7N/AlN/GaN HEMT structures and correlated with the increase of 2DEG mobility. (c) 2006 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co KGaA, Weinheim.

Edge dislocation of b=[001]/2 in the InAs nanostructure on InP(001)

The self-organized InAs/In0.52Al0.48As nanostructure were grown on InP (001) using molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). The nanostructure has been studied using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM). The edge dislocations with the Burgers vector b = ([001]/2) and extending along the [$(110) over bar $] direction are observed. The results show that in the region near an edge dislocation, no InAs wires were formed, while in the regions free of dislocation, wire-like nanostructures were formed. The mechanisms for the formation of the [001]/2 edge dislocations were discussed.

Research on the band-gap of InN grown on siticon substrates

Photoluminescence (PL) and absorption experiments were carried out to examine the fundamental band-gap of InN films grown on silicon substrates. A strong PL peak at 0.78 eV was observed at room temperature, which is much lower than the commonly accepted value of 1.9 eV. The integrated PL intensity was found to depend linearly on the excitation laser intensity over a wide intensity range. These results strongly suggest that the observed PL is related to the emission of the fundamental inter-band transitions of InN rather than to deep defect or impurity levels. Due to the effect of band-filling with increasing free electron concentration, the absorption edge shifts to higher energy. (c) 2006 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Nonradiative recombination effect on photoluminescence decay dynamics in GaInNAs/GaAs quantum wells - art. no. 61180Z

The nonradiative recombination effect on the photoluminescence (PL) decay dynamics in GaInNAs/GaAs quantum wells is studied by photoluminescence and time-resolved photoluminescence under various excitation intensities and temperatures. It is found that the PL decay dynamics strongly depends on the excitation intensity. In particular, under the moderate excitation levels the PL decay curves exhibit unusual non-exponential behavior and show a convex shape. By introducing a new concept of the effective concentration of nonradiative recombination centers into a rate equation, the observed results are well simulated. In the cw PL measurement, a rapid PL quenching is observed even at very low temperature and is of the excitation power dependence. These results further demonstrate that the non-radiative recombination process plays a very important role on the optical properties of GaInNAs/GaAs quantum wells.

Time-resolved photoluminescence spectra of self-assembled InAs/GaAs quantum dots

Two types of InAs self-assembled Quantum dots (QDs) were prepared by Molecular beam epitaxy. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) measurements showed that, compared to QDs grown on GaAs substrate, QDs grown on InGaAs layer has a significantly enhanced density. The short spacing (several nanometer) among QDs stimulates strong coupling and leads to a large red-shift of the 1.3 mu m photoluminescence (PL) peak. We study systematically the dependence of PL lifetime on the QDs size, density and temperature (1). We found that, below 50 K, the PL lifetime is insensitive to temperature, which is interpreted from the localization effects. As T increases, the PL lifetime increases, which can be explained from the competition between the carrier redistribution and thermal emission at higher temperature. The increase of carriers in QDs migrated from barriers and wetting layer (WL), and the redistribution of carriers among QDs enhance the PL lifetime as T increases. The thermal emission and non-radiative recombination have effects to reduce the PL lifetime at higher T. As a result, the radiative recombination lifetime is determined by the wave function overlapping of electrons and holes in QDs, and QDs with different densities have different PL lifetime dependence on the QDs size. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A study of indium incorporation in In-rich InGaN grown by MOVPE

InGaN/GaN heterostructures have been deposited onto (0 0 0 1) sapphire by our home-made low pressure MOVPE with different growth parameters. It has been noted that the indium incorporation depends by a complex way on a number of factors. In this work, the effect of substrate temperature, trimethylindium input flow and V/III ratio on the indium incorporation has been investigated. Finally, by optimizing the growth parameters, we made a series of single-phase InGaN samples with indium content from 10% up to 45%.

Strain-Compensated InGaAs/InAlAs Quantum Cascade Detector of 4.5 mu m Operating at Room Temperature

We present a strain-compensated InP-based InGaAs/InAlAs photovoltaic quantum cascade detector grown by solid source molecular beam epitaxy. The detector is based on a vertical intersubband transition and electron transfer on a cascade of quantum levels which is designed to provide longitudinal optical phonon extraction stairs. By careful structure design and growth, the whole epilayer has a residual strain toward InP substrate of only -2.8 x 10(-4). A clear narrow band detection spectrum centered at 4.5 mu m has been observed above room temperature for a device with 200 x 200 mu m(2) square mesa.

A 10 Gb/s Directly-Modulated 1.3 mu m InAs/GaAs Quantum-Dot Laser

We demonstrate 10 Gb/s directly-modulated 1.3 mu m InAs quantum-dot (QD) lasers grown on GaAs substrates by molecular beam epitaxy. The active region of the QD lasers consists of five-stacked InAs QD layers. Ridge-waveguide lasers with a ridge width of 4 mu m and a cavity length of 600 mu m are fabricated with standard lithography and wet etching techniques. It is found that the lasers emit at 1293 nm with a very low threshold current of 5 mA at room temperature. Furthermore, clear eye-opening patterns under 10 Gb/s modulation rate at temperatures of up to 50 degrees C are achieved by the QD lasers. The results presented here have important implications for realizing low-cost, low-power-consumption, and high-speed light sources for next-generation communication systems.

Electron concentration dependence of exciton localization and freeze-out at local potential fluctuations in InN films

InN films with electron concentration ranging from n similar to 10(17) to 10(20) cm(-3) grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) and molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) were investigated by variable-temperature photoluminescence and absorption measurements. The energy positions of absorption edge as well as photoluminescence peak of these InN samples with electron concentration above 10(18) cm(-3) show a distinct S-shape temperature dependence. With a model of potential fluctuations caused by electron-impurity interactions, the behavior can be quantitatively explained in terms of exciton freeze-out in local potential minima at sufficiently low temperatures, followed by thermal redistribution of the localized excitons when the band gap shrinks with increasing temperature. The exciton localization energy sigma (loc) is found to follow the n (5/12) power relation, which testifies to the observed strong localization effects in InN with high electron concentrations.

In-plane optical anisotropy in GaAsN/GaAs single-quantum well investigated by reflectance-difference spectroscopy

The interface properties of GaNxAs1-x/GaAs single-quantum well is investigated at 80 K by reflectance difference spectroscopy. Strong in-plane optical anisotropies (IPOA) are observed. Numerical calculations based on a 4 band K . P Hamiltonian are performed to analyze the origin of the optical anisotropy. It is found that the IPOA can be mainly attributed to anisotropic strain effect, which increases with the concentration of nitrogen. The origin of the strain component epsilon(xy) is also discussed.

Gate controlled Aharonov-Bohm-type oscillations from single neutral excitons in quantum rings

We report on a magnetophotoluminescence study of single self-assembled semiconductor nanorings which are fabricated by molecular-beam epitaxy combined with AsBr3 in situ etching. Oscillations in the neutral exciton radiative recombination energy and in the emission intensity are observed under an applied magnetic field. Further, we control the period of the oscillations with a gate potential that modifies the exciton confinement. We infer from the experimental results, combined with calculations, that the exciton Aharonov-Bohm effect may account for the observed effects.