Growth of GaInNAs by atomic hydrogen-assisted RF-MBE

Abstract

GaInNAs and GaNAs are the representative III-VN semiconductors, which have a near-linear dependence of the bandgap between GaAs and GaN with a much larger alloy bandgap bowing parameter than for any other ternary semiconductors. Recently, GaInNAs and GaNAs have been intensively investigated as new material systems for long wavelength communication devices fabricated on Si and GaAs substrates at the optical-fiber communication wavelength window (1.3/spl sim/1.55/spl mu/m) with superior temperature stability, as well as for multi-junction high efficiency solar cells. However, the crystal quality of GaInNAs, in general, becomes degraded with increasing N composition. This problem must be overcome in order to realize more reliable device-quality GaInNAs. Meanwhile, we have previously shown that the irradiation of atomic H during MBE growth of GaAs, and GaN significantly improves the crystal quality of these films. We investigate the effect of atomic H irradiation in the growth of GaInNAs by RF-MBE in view of the growth dynamics and crystal quality including surface morphology and optical characteristics.