Influence of the growth rate of a highly strained InGaAs quantum well on the photoluminescence of a heterostructures grown on GaAs substrate

   Epitaxy of highly strained InGaAs quantum wells with a mole fraction of indium exceeding 35 % is a technologically challenging task. The structural quality of these elastically strained epitaxial layers greatly affects the photoluminescence efficiency of quantum wells. Therefore, in order to achieve high structural quality, optimization of the epitaxial growth parameters is required, one of which is the growth rate of the epitaxial layer. Heterostructures containing the In_xGa_1–xAs (0.37 ≤ x < 0.41) quantum well were produced on GaAs substrates by molecular beam epitaxy with different growth rates of InGaAs ranging from 0.24 to 3.3 Å/s. The actual thickness and composition of the quantum well were determined by X-ray diffractometry, as well as the structural quality of the heterostructures was investigated. The photoluminescence spectra of the manufactured heterostructures were measured at temperatures of 20 K and 300 K at different optical pumping powers. Based on the dependence of photoluminescence intensity on pumping power, recombination currents were calculated and the time of non-radiative recombination in the studied structures was estimated. The InAs content in the quantum wells of the manufactured heterostructures ranged from 37.0 % to 40.6 %. Based on analysis of X-ray rocking curves, deterioration of structural quality at low deposition rate of 0.24 Å/s was observed. The photoluminescence spectroscopy measurements showed a significantly higher photoluminescence intensity of quantum wells at moderate growth rates of InGaAs (0.9–2.5 Å/s) compared to other samples. The calculated values for the non-radiative recombination lifetime of quantum wells produced at these moderate growth rates were in the order of 10^–6 s at 20 K and 10^–9 s at 300 K. At higher or lower growth rates, the values of the non-radiative recombination lifetime decreased. The results obtained demonstrate the achievement of the best structural quality for highly strained InGaAs layers produced at 0.9–2.5 Å/s growth rate. These results can be used to optimize the parameters of epitaxial growth processes for highly strained quantum wells based on InGaAs, for fabricating monolithic vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers, based on GaAs substrate, operating in the 1200–1300 nm spectral range.

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