Midinfrared photoluminescence and compositional modulation in pentanary GaInAsPSb alloys grown by liquid phase epitaxy

Abstract

Room temperature photoluminescence is reported from GaInAsSbP pentanary alloys grown by liquid phase epitaxy on GaSb. The epitaxial layers exhibited emission in the midinfrared between 3 and 4 m. Investigation of the structural and photoluminescence properties revealed localization effects associated with potential fluctuations in the pentanary alloy arising from compositional modulation. © 2007 American Institute of Physics. ͓DOI: 10.1063/1.2768892͔Continuing interest in the development of III-V materials for use in midinfrared ͑2-5 m͒ light sources and detectors is driven by the extensive range of potential applications in this spectral region, including environmental gas monitoring, noninvasive medical diagnosis, tunable IR spectroscopy, and free space optical communications. 1 The pentanary alloys, such as GaInAsSbP, offer some useful advantages to the device engineer by making available an additional degree of freedom. 2,3 For a given value of the band gap or lattice constant, properties, such as the refractive index, spin-orbit valence band splitting, band offsets, etc., can be independently varied. This could enable control of optical confinement, carrier leakage, intervalence band absorption, and Auger recombination. However, there have been very few reports on the growth and the luminescence properties of GaInAsSbP pentanary alloys. 3,4 Recently, however, AlGaInAsSb alloys have been grown by molecular beam epitaxy and effectively used as the barrier layers in room temperature midinfrared quantum well lasers. 5 Here we report on the liquid phase epitaxial growth of GaInAsSbP pentanary alloys and demonstrate room temperature photoluminescence ͑PL͒ in the 3 -4 m spectral range.Epitaxial growth of pentanary GaInAsPSb single epilayers was carried out from antimony-rich melts onto Ge doped p-type GaSb ͑100͒ substrates. Growth melts were prepared from 6N Sb and 7N In pure metals, while the sources of Ga, As, and P were undoped polycrystalline GaSb, InAs, and InP binary compounds. The use of antimony as the solvent for liquid phase epitaxy ͑LPE͒ growth of GaSb-related alloys has some advantages because it avoids substrate erosion and reduces the formation of Sb vacancies. 6-8 Growth was implemented from supercooled melts at temperatures within the interval of 585-600°C. In each case before the deposition of the GaInAsPSb pentanary alloy an undoped GaSb p-type buffer layer was grown on the substrate. Structural characterization of the resulting epitaxial layers was done using phase contrast Nomarski microscopy, field emission electron microscopy, and high resolution x-ray diffraction. Subsequent optical investigation of the GaInAsSbP structures included PL spectroscopy using an Ar + ion laser ͑514 nm͒ which produced an excitation power density of 20 W cm −2 on the sample. Temperature dependent PL measurements over the range of 4 -300 K were carried out using conventional lock-in techniques. Additional measurements were made with a Bruker IFS 66/S Fourier transform infrared spectrometer and a 77 K InSb photodiod...

Low Bandgap GaInAsSbP Pentanary Thermophotovoltaic cells

“…Values of 0.348 eV, 1.2 × 10 -4 eV/K and 100 K were found for E g (0), α and β respectively. The S-shaped curve is characteristic of recombination through localized states near the band edges and has been previously observed in GaInAsSbP and AlGaAsSb alloys [10,11]. The resulting I-V plot obtained from a 1 mm p-in/P GaInAsSbP p-i-n diode is shown in figure 3 (black line) where the leakage current is reduced compared to InAsSb and an ideality factor closer to one is obtained.…”

Novel materials GaInAsPSb/GaSb and GaInAsPSb/InAs for room-temperature optoelectronic devices for a 3–5 µm wavelength range (GaInAsPSb/GaSb and GaInAsPSb/InAs for 3–5 µm)

“…The optical signal was registered with a high-aperture spectrometer SDL-1 (LOMO) and a cooled Hg-Cd-Te photoresistor (Hamamatsu). PL characteristics of a sample series grown on GaSb substrates were reported earlier [15]. In the present work, luminescent characteristics of samples grown on GaSb as well as on InAs substrates were studied (figure 4).…”

Computational study of lattice dynamics and mechanical properties of AlxIn1-xPySbzAs1-y-z/InP under the effect of composition

“…The use of a pentanary alloy can be advantageous to the device developer. The alloy's fifth element gives it additional elasticity to adjust the efficiency of devices while keeping the structure constant [12,13]. Many methods have been used to predict the physical properties of semiconductor alloys [14][15][16][17].…”