Growth of GaInNAs by Plasma Assisted Molecular Beam Epitaxy

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe nitrogen containing alloy GaInNAs has attracted a great deal of interest recently for optoelectronic device applications at long wavelengths, especially 1.3µm, on GaAs substrates. What has been observed is that the material quality degrades rapidly with the addition of nitrogen. In this work we systematically explore the parameter space for the growth of GainNAs using plasma-assisted MBE and inert gas dilution. Inert gas dilution allows additional control of the production of active nitrogen; thus we can independently adjust RF power, gas flow rate, and nitrogen generation, which is used to study the effects of the plasma on the growth surface. In addition to examining the effects of plasma operating conditions, we will also explore the effects of other growth parameters (arsenic to nitrogen ratio and growth temperature) on the resultant structural and optical properties. These properties will be explored by photoluminescence, SIMS, and x-ray diffraction with the goal of understanding how nitrogen incorporation affects the resultant material properties. The resulting information is used to grow high quality layers for GaNAs avalanche photodiodes with a cut-off wavelength of 1.064µm