Metamorphic Integration of GaInAsSb Material on GaAs Substrates for Light Emitting Device Applications

Abstract

The GaInAsSb material has been conventionally grown on lattice-matched GaSb substrates. In this work, we transplanted this material onto the GaAs substrates in molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). The threading dislocations (TDs) originating from the large lattice mismatch were efficiently suppressed by a novel metamorphic buffer layer design, which included the interfacial misfit (IMF) arrays at the GaSb/GaAs interface and strained GaInSb/GaSb multi-quantum wells (MQWs) acting as dislocation filtering layers (DFLs). Cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images revealed that a large part of the dislocations was bonded on the GaAs/GaSb interface due to the IMF arrays, and the four repetitions of the DFL regions can block most of the remaining threading dislocations. Etch pit density (EPD) measurements indicated that the dislocation density in the GaInAsSb material on top of the buffer layer was reduced to the order of 106 /cm2, which was among the lowest for this compound material grown on GaAs. The light emitting diodes (LEDs) based on the GaInAsSb P-N structures on GaAs exhibited strong electro-luminescence (EL) in the 2.0–2.5 µm range. The successful metamorphic growth of GaInAsSb on GaAs with low dislocation densities paved the way for the integration of various GaInAsSb based light emitting devices on the more cost-effective GaAs platform.