Low Temperature Growth of Gaas Quantum Well Lasers by Modulated Beam Epitaxy

ABSTRACTGaAs single quantum well lasers have been successfully grown at low temperatures by a modulated beam epitaxy process in which the Al/Ga flux is held constant while the As flux is periodically shut off to produce a metal-rich surface. Devices grown at a substrate temperature of 500 °C exhibit threshold current densities below 1 kA/cm2. This value is lower than normally grown low temperature lasers and is the lowest achieved by any low substrate temperature growth technique. In addition, low temperature (10 K) photoluminescence of single quantum wells grown with this technique exhibit full-width half maximum values, comparable to that attainable by higher temperature growth techniques. The improved quality of these low temperature grown quantum structures is attributed to both a smoothing of the growth front and a reduction of excess As during the modulated beam epitaxy process. The high growth rates and less frequent shutter operation of this technique make it a more practical than migration enhanced epitaxy or atomic layer epitaxy for low temperature growth.