GaAsP nanowires (NWs) containing a range of different heterostructures are shown to be a highly promising system for the fabrication of efficient and novel ultra-small light emitters. NWs containing GaAs radial quantum wells (QWs) have emission with high thermal stability, due to both large electron and hole confinement potentials. A structure containing three QWs exhibits very low threshold lasing at low temperatures. Within the GaAsP central region of the same NW, the formation of quantum wires (QWRs) on three of the six vertices is observed, these QWRs are aligned parallel to the NW axis. The presence of twins causes a 180° rotation of the crystal about the growth axis, breaking the QWRs into short sections which may act as quantum dots (QDs). Optical studies of the NWs support the formation of optically active QWRs and QDs. In a second type of NW, during growth of the GaAsP NW core the introduction of a short GaAs section forms a QD. The inclusion of up to 50 QDs with high structural and optical quality is shown to be possible; indicating the potential for the fabrication of QD lasers. A structure with only one QD exhibits a single sharp emission line and behavior consistent with single exciton recombination. The addition of passivation layers, grown as a shell on the NW core, is shown to be essential in obtaining good optical properties. Our studies hence demonstrate that GaAsP-GaAs NWs containing heterostructures have significant potential for a range of novel light emitting applications.
Nanowires containing quantum structures (dots or wires) offer direct integration of light emitters with ultra-small optical cavities. Applications include nanoscale lasers and single photon sources with high extraction efficiencies. These structures have high surface to volume ratios so surface passivation is a significant consideration, requiring a careful choice of materials.
We report the growth and structural and optical characterisation of GaAsP nanowires containing either GaAs quantum dots (QDs) or quantum wells (QWs). This novel common group-III system offers a number of advantages in comparison to previously studied systems, including deep confinement potentials, reduced surface recombination and lack of an absorbing core when fabricating laser structures. Structures are grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) on Si substrates allowing potential direction integration with drive electronics. TEM studies reveal high quality, defect free structures but a complex GaAsP structure with regions having different P compositions, suggesting the formation of QD and quantum wire regions within the nanowire. Evidence for GaAsP related-QDs is seen in low temperature micro-PL spectra. Nanowires containing radial QWs exhibit highly efficient QW carrier capture and a large activation energy for temperature dependent PL, consistent with strong carrier confinement. A laser structure containing three radial GaAs QWs exhibits a very low pumping threshold at low temperatures. Initial studies of nanowires containing GaAs QDs show excellent structural and optical properties. Our results indicate the potential of the GaAs/GaAsP system for improved lasers and single photon sources.
Three InAs quantum dot (QD) samples with dislocation filter layers (DFLs) are grown on Si substrates with and without in-situ annealing. Comparison is made to a similar structure grown on a GaAs substrate. The three Si grown samples have different dislocation densities in their active region as revealed by structural studies. By determining the integrated emission as a function of laser power it is possible to determine the power dependence of the radiative efficiency and compare this across the four samples. The radiative efficiency increases with decreasing dislocation density; this also results in a decrease in the temperature quenching of the PL. A laser structures grown on Si and implementing the same optimum DFL and annealing procedure exhibits a greater than 3 fold reduction in threshold current as well as a two fold increase in slope efficiency in comparison to a device in which no annealing is applied.
We introduce the concept of using strained superlattice structures as defect filters, with their purpose to reduce the upwards propagation of dislocations that result from the lattice mismatch which occurs when III-V materials are grown on silicon substrates. Three samples with defect filter layers are grown on Si with and without in situ annealing and are compared to a similar structure grown on a GaAs substrate. Transmission electron microscopy is used to verify the effectiveness of the different designs grown on Si, with the twice-annealed sample reducing the number of defects present in the active region by 99.9%. Optical studies carried out exhibit brighter room temperature emission and reduced photoluminescence quenching with temperature in samples where annealing is performed. Photoluminescence excitation measurements reveal a ~20 meV redshift in the position of the GaAs exciton for the samples grown on Si compared to that of GaAs, indicating a residual inplane tensile strain ~0.35% in the GaAs of the active region for the samples grown on Si.
We realise growth of both GaAsP and GaAs core nanowires (NWs), as well as GaAsP core-shell NWs grown on (111) Si substrates using solid source molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). By modifying the growth conditions it is possible to change the dimensions of the GaAsP NWs and optimisation of these conditions yields high crystal quality structures. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) as well as temperature, power and time resolved photoluminescence (PL) are used to study the optical and structural properties of the NWs. The incorporation of P into the NWs is used to shift the PL emission for ~ 810 nm to ~ 730 nm at 77 K, and also results in enhanced PL and an improved carrier lifetime. The addition of a p-doped GaAsP shell to a GaAsP core NW reduces the nonradiative recombination at surface states, as evidenced by x14 reduction of PL quenching with temperature, enhanced carrier lifetime, as well as a x3.5 increase in 77 K integrated PL intensity.
Quantum dot (QD) lasers incorporating the dot-in-a-well (DWELL) structures offer the prospect of lowcost
and high-performance sources for telecom applications at 1300 nm. A number of significant
advantages have been demonstrated to arise from the 0-D density of states, such as low threshold, low
noise, low chirp and relative temperature insensitivity. However QD lasers suffer from a low modal gain
per dot layer, which is a major factor of limiting high-speed performance. To address this, both a high inplane
dot density and the use of multilayer structure are necessary and this presents a major challenge for
molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) growth. In this work, to increase the gain of 1300-nm quantum-dot (QD)
lasers, we first optimize the MBE growth of InAs/InGaAs QD structure for single-layer epitaxy structure
with In composition within InGaAs well. Then we proposed a growth technique, high-growthtemperature
spacer layer to suppress the dislocation formation for the multilayer QD structure. These
lead to the realization of high-performance multilayer 1300-nm QD lasers with extremely low threshold
current density (Jth) of 17 A/cm2 at room temperature (RT) under continuous-wave (cw) operation and
high output power of over 100 mW. By combining the high-growth-temperature spacer layer technique
with the p-type modulation doping structure, a negative characteristic temperature above RT has been
demonstrated for a 5-layer QD laser structure. Further modification of the high-growth-temperature
spacer layer technique, we realized a very low RT threshold current density of 33 A/cm2 for a 7-layer ptype-
modulated QD laser. The temperature coefficient of ~0.11 nm/K over the temperature range from
20 to 130 °C has also been realized by modifying the strain profile of InGaAs capping layer. These
techniques could find application in lasers designed for optical fiber systems.
Electroluminescence (EL) and its temperature dependence of InAs quantum dots embedded in In0.15Ga0.85As quantum
well [dots in a well (DWELL)] have been investigated as functions of the growth temperature of the GaAs spacer layer.
The EL intensity at room temperature increases as the spacer growth temperature increases. The integrated EL intensity
as a function of injection current at room temperature for all samples shows that at low currents, the gradients are
superlinear but this superlinearity decreases as the spacer growth temperature is increased. From a simple analysis of the
generation-recombination rate equations, it can be shown that the superlinearity stems from the nonradiative
recombination being the dominant recombination process. As the spacer growth temperature is increased, this
nonradiative recombination become less dominant. An Arrhenius plot of the temperature dependence of the EL intensity
gives an activation energy of ~300 ± 15 meV at high temperature. The dominant loss mechanism is therefore concluded
to be the electron escape from the quantum dot ground state to the GaAs barrier.
The performance of lasers with self assembled quantum dot active regions is significantly affected
by the presence of the two dimensional wetting layer and the other states necessary for carrier
injection due to the manner in which carriers are distributed amongst the various states. In this work
we describe three approaches to overcome the low value of maximum saturated gain, which has
been observed by many groups worldwide, and explain the approaches in terms of the impact on the distribution of carriers within the available states. We present results of direct measurements of the modal gain and measurements that indicate the form of the carrier distribution within the samples to justify our argument. The structures examined include the use of a high growth temperature to smooth the matrix layer, the use of p-type modulation doping and the use of InAlAs capping layers and all have been grown by solid source molecular beam epitaxy. We demonstrate CW operation at 1.3&mgr;m for 1mm long devices with uncoated facets and very low threshold current density (< 40Acm-2) in longer devices. We also demonstrate that the negative T0 (reducing threshold current density with increasing temperature) obtained around room temperature in our p-doped devices is due to the temperature dependence of the gain.
An ultrafast pump-probe method based on differing polarization properties of neutral and charged excitons in
semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) is employed to study carrier dynamics in InGaAs QDs grown in nominally
undoped, modulation doped and p-i-n structures. We find that at low temperature even in the nominally undoped
samples there are large fractions of charged dots. It is also demonstrated that for bipolar electrical injection there
is a high probability of the independent capture of electrons or holes into the dots, resulting in dot charging.
Voltage-control of the charged exciton population, created via a combination of electrical and optical excitation,
which exhibits a long lived spin-polarization (or spin-memory) is demonstrated.
A high-growth-temperature step used for the GaAs spacer layer is shown to significantly improve the performance of 1.3-μm multilayer InAs/GaAs quantum-dot (QD) lasers. The high-growth-temperature spacer layer inhibits threading dislocation formation, resulting in enhanced electrical and optical characteristics and hence improved laser performance. The combination of high-growth-temperature GaAs spacer layers and high-reflectivity (HR) coated facets has been utilized to further reduce the threshold current and threshold current density (Jth) for 1.3-μm InAs/GaAs QD lasers. Very low continuous-wave room-temperature threshold current of 1.5 mA and a threshold current density of 18.8 A/cm2 are achieved for a 3-layer device with a 1-mm long HR/HR cavity. For a 2-mm cavity the continuous-wave threshold current density is as low as 17 A/cm2 at room temperature for an HR/HR device. An output power as high as 100 mW is obtained for a device with HR/cleaved facets. The high-growth-temperature spacer layers have only a relatively small effect on the temperature stability of the threshold current above room temperature. To further increase the characteristic temperature (T0) of the QD lasers, 1.3-μm InAs/GaAs QD lasers incorporating p-type modulation doping have been grown and studied. A negative T0 and Jth of 48 A/cm-2 at room temperature have been obtained by combining the high-growth-temperature GaAs spacer layers with the p-type modulation doping of the QDs.
Self-assembled In(Ga)As quantum dot (QD) lasers incorporating p-type modulation doping have generated much interest recently due to reports of a temperature insensitive threshold current and increased modulation bandwidth. The mechanism by which p-type doping improves the performance of QD lasers is thought to be similar to that envisaged for quantum well lasers, where increased gain is expected for a given quasi-Fermi level separation due to a shift in both quasi-Fermi levels towards the valence states. However, the benefits may be much more pronounced in quantum dot structures since the population of the smaller number of dot states can be dramatically affected using relatively low doping levels, which may incur less penalty with regard to increased non-radiative recombination and internal optical mode loss. We present results of direct measurements of the modal gain measured as a function of the quasi-Fermi level separation for samples with different degrees of doping, which demonstrate unambiguously the increased gain that can be obtained at a fixed quasi-Fermi level separation. In addition, we have measured the internal optical mode loss and radiative and non-radiative recombination currents for samples containing 0, 15 and 50 dopant atoms per dot and show that, although the internal optical mode loss is similar for all three samples, the non-radiative recombination current increases for samples containing p-doping. We show that our experimental results are consistent with a simple computer simulation of the operation of our structures.
Quantum dots have demonstrated improved performance relative to quantum wells in lasers and amplifiers for structures where the total optical loss, and hence the gain required from the dot active material, has been kept low. In many applications higher gain and/or high differential gain are required and high gain structures must be routinely produced if quantum dots are to replace quantum wells in more than a few niche applications. The obvious approach is to use multiple layers of quantum dots in the active region of the laser or amplifier. However, stacking multiple quantum dot layers modifies the growth of subsequent layers and in the extreme case leads to defect formation.
In this work we study an approach where the negative effects caused by the introduction of multiple layers of quantum dots are minimised using a high growth temperature spacer layer (HGTSL) to planarize the surface before deposition of the subsequent layer of dots. We show that this has a dramatic affect on the threshold current of our 1.3μm emitting lasers and by use of detailed characterisation show that this is due to 4 physical effects. Samples containing the HGTSL exhibit less inhomogenous broadening, have an increased dot density, a lower internal optical mode loss and contain fewer defects than samples containing a conventional spacer layer. Our results demonstrate the importance of going beyond an approach based on defect reduction alone.
Non-linear carrier-photon dynamics are studied for optically pumped InAs quantum dot (QD) laser structures, using excitation into the GaAs barrier by two degenerate pump and probe laser pulses. The non-linear emission from QDs excited by the pump pulse is further amplified by the probe excitation. By varying the delay between the two pulses a very fast decay of the QD excited state emission is measured. Notably slower dynamics for the QD ground state are observed, governed by state filling phenomena, which result in gain saturation.
The optical spectroscopic techniques of photoluminescence and photoluminescence excitation are used to determine the electronic band structure of GaAs-lattice matched bulk (AlxGa1-x)0.52In0.48P and Ga0.52In0.48P-(AlxGa1-x)0.52In0.48P quantum wells. The compositional dependence of both the direct and indirect band gaps is determined for bulk (AlxGa1-x)0.52In0.48P epitaxial layers. These measurements allow the composition for which the lowest energy band gap becomes indirect to be deduced (xc equals 0.50 +/- 0.02). Photoluminescence and photoluminescence excitation studies of Ga0.52In0.48P-(AlxGa1-x)0.52In0.48P quantum wells indicate high structural and optical quality and demonstrate that thin (< 40 angstroms) Ga0.52In0.48P wells with Al0.52In0.48P-(AlxGa1-x)0.52In0.48P quantum wells to be determined in an accurate and reliable manner. The conduction band offset, (Delta) Ec, expressed as a fraction of the total direct band gap discontinuity, (Delta) EG, is found to be approximately independent of barrier Al composition ((Delta) Ec approximately equals 0.67 (Delta) EG).
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