Non-Equilibrium InSb/InAISb Diodes Grown by MBE

Abstract

AbstractThe application of non-equilibrium transport techniques to Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) grown InSb/InAlSb heterostructure diodes has produced practical devices such as midinfrared LED's and negative luminescent sources that operate at room temperature. By extending the epitaxial growth to vicinal InSb substrates it has been demonstrated that the temperature window for high quality epitaxy can be lowered by ∼12°C, giving greatly improved epilayer morphology. The degree of misorientation needed for given growth temperatures is shown from Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) measurements to be only ∼2°. In addition, the lower growth temperature gives improved dopant activation, lower trap densities and lower reverse bias leakage currents, with consequent benefits to device performance.