Radiative Recombination and Carrier Lifetimes in Surface-Free GaAs Homostructures

Abstract

AbstractWe show that the radiative efficiencies and lifetimes of photoexcited carriers in epitaxial GaAs may be enhanced by 3 to 4 orders-of-magnitude by the preparation of n+, doped layers at surface and substrate interfaces. Samples were prepared by Organo-Metallic Vapor Phase Epitaxy (OMVPE), with n-region thicknesses of 3–10 µm, and narrow layers Si-doped to n+ concentrations of 5×1018 cm-3. Time-resolved luminescence in such structures, under both surface and bulk (near-band-edge) excitation conditions, reveal near-edge-excitonic or band-to-band-dominated recombination spectra, with carrier lifetimes ranging from 1.5 nsec at 1.5 K to nearly 1 µsec at room temperature. This is in contrast to the sub-nanosecond lifetimes typical in conventionally prepared bulk GaAs, but is comparable to the best reported for high-purity LPE-prepared GaAs/AlxGa1-xAs double heterostructures. The spatial distributions of photoexcited carriers in these structures are observed to expand by over an order of magnitude during their 1 µsec room temperature lifetime. The expansion is diffusive, with a measured diffusion constant of 14 cm2/sec at 300 K. This corresponds to a room temperature mobility of 525 cm2/Vsec, comparable to previously measured hole mobilities in bulk p-type GaAs of similar purity. These results are clear evidence that the narrow, heavily doped layers effectively “shield” minority carriers from the interfaces, thereby reducing interface recombination.