Molecular beam epitaxial growth and electronic transport of GaInSb/GaSb (111) quantum wells

Abstract

We report on the epitaxial growth of antimony-based GaSb/Ga1−xInxSb/GaSb quantum wells (QWs) on the (111) plane. Different from the more common (001) heterostructures, (111) structures offer certain advantages in electronic properties, such as the existence of the strain-induced piezoelectric effect, as well as a large effective mass of hole carriers along the growth axis. In the present work, we found that high-quality QWs can be successfully grown using a GaSb buffer layer on a vicinal GaAs (111)B substrate. Due to the presence of the piezoelectric field and the surface states, hole carriers are introduced in the QW without intentional doping. Electrical transport measurements on an x = 0.1 sample at 300 mK show that the QW has a two-dimensional hole gas (2DHG) density of 6.7 × 1011 cm−2 and a mobility of 28 000 cm2/Vs. The 2DHG exhibits clear Shubnikov–de Haas oscillations and the integer quantum Hall effect under a perpendicular magnetic field.