Effect of thermal annealing on the opticaland structural properties of (311)B and(001) GaAsBi/GaAs single quantum wellsgrown by MBE

Abstract

The effect of Furnace Annealing (FA) and Rapid Thermal annealing (RTA) on the structural and optical properties of GaAs1 − xBix/GaAs single quantum wells grown on (001) and (311)B substrates by molecular beam epitaxy was investigated. The structural properties were investigated by high-resolution x-ray diffraction (HR-XRD) and Transmission Electron Microscopy. The Bi concentration profiles were determined by simulating the HR-XRD 2θ−ω scans using dynamical scattering theory to estimate the Bi content, lattice coherence, and quality of the interfaces. The Bi composition was found to be similar for both samples grown on (001) and (311)B GaAs substrates. However, the simulations indicate that the Bi composition is not only limited in the GaAsBi quantum well (QW) layer but also extends out of the GaAsBi QW toward the GaAs barrier. Photoluminescence (PL) measurements were performed as a function of temperature and laser power for samples with a nominal Bi composition of 3%. PL spectra showed that (001) and (311)B samples have different peak energies at 1.23 eV and 1.26 eV, respectively, at 10 K. After RTA at 300 °C for 2 min, the PL intensity of (311)B and (001) samples was enhanced by factors of ∼2.5 and 1.75, respectively. However, for the (001) and (311)B FA samples, an enhancement of the PL intensity by a factor of only 1.5 times could be achieved. The enhancement of PL intensity in annealed samples was interpreted in terms of PL activation energies, with a reduction in the alloy disorder and an increase in the Bi cluster.

Citation

Alghamdi, H., Gordo, V. O., Schmidbauer, M., Felix, J. F., Alhassan, S., Alhassni, A., …Henini, M. (2020). Effect of thermal annealing on the opticaland structural properties of (311)B and(001) GaAsBi/GaAs single quantum wellsgrown by MBE. Journal of Applied Physics, 127, Article 125704. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5140447

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 7, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Mar 25, 2020
• Publication Date: Mar 25, 2020
• Deposit Date: Mar 27, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 30, 2020
• Journal: Journal of Applied Physics
• Print ISSN: 0021-8979
• Publisher: AIP Publishing
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 127
• Article Number: 125704
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5140447
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/4206526
• Publisher URL: https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.5140447
• Additional Information: This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and AIP Publishing. This article appeared in Journal of Applied Physics 127, 125704 (2020) and may be found at https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.5140447