BREAKING UP OF MISFIT DISLOCATIONS IN GAASIN0.3GA0.7AS/GAAS HETEROSTRUCTURE

The effect of GaAs cap layer with different thicknesses in the GaAs/In0.3Ga0.7As/GaAs heterostructure on misfit dislocation is investigated with transmission electron microscopy, and it is found that lines of misfit dislocation break up and move out of the structure when the GaAs cap layer thickness exceeds a certain amount. The breaking up and moving out of misfit dislocations, initially confined in the (001) substrate/InGaAs epilayer interface, occur mainly along the [110] direction on the interface in the structure. (C) 1995 American Institute of Physics.

PHOTOLUMINESCENCE STUDY OF GAAS/ALGAAS QUANTUM-WELL HETEROSTRUCTURE INTERFACES

Photoluminescence (PL) is used to study the interface properties of GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well (QW) heterostructures prepared by molecular beam epitaxy with growth interruption (GI). The discrete luminescence lines observed for the sample with GI are assigned to the splitting of the heavy-hole exciton associated with heterointerface islands with the lateral size greater than exciton diameter and mean height less than one monolayer, and the spectra have the Gaussian lineshapes. The results strongly support the microroughness model. We also study the temperature dependence of the exciton energies and find that excitons are localized at the interface roughness at low temperature even in the sample with GI. The lateral size of the microroughness of the GI sample is estimated to be less than 5 nm from the exciton localization energy.