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X-ray Rocking Curve Analysis of Strained Heterointerfaces and Quantum Wells

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

C. R. Wie
C. R. Wie*
Affiliation:
State University of New York at Buffalo Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering 201 Bonner Hall, BuffaloNY 14260
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Abstract

A detailed discussion is given for the x-ray rocking curve analysis of semiconductor heterointerfaces and strained quantum wells using x-ray interferometry. It is shown that for a single heteroepitaxiai layer sample and a multiple quantum well sample, the heterointerface where the composition changes in both anion and cation sublattices can be studied with a half monolayer sensitivity by analyzing the x-ray rocking curve profile. Such sample systems include GaInAs/InR InAs/GaSb, GalnP/GaAs, ZnSe/GaAs, etc. A simple kinematical diffraction principle involved in the x-ray analysis is explained. Namely, the relative phase difference between the reflection amplitudes of any two layers depends on the total sum of strain (or mismatch)-thickness products over the intervening layers and interfaces. The x-ray interferometry is also effective in measuring the strain-thickness product of strained quantum wells. Experimental data and analysis results are presented for a series of functional device structures having a strained quantum well. For a more complicated sampie structure which involves both a (strained) quantum-effect layer and strained interfaces, it is shown that the x-ray interferometry is only capable of providing the total strain-thickness product over the quantum layer and the surrounding interfaces, but no detailed information about the interface grading can be gained from the rocking curve analysis alone if onhy one isolated sample is measured. An experimental data of such a sample, 0.3μm-GaAs/100Å-GaInP/ GaAs(001), is analyzed.

Type
III. Applications of Diffraction to Semiconductors and Films
Information
Advances in X-Ray Analysis , Volume 38: Forty-third Annual Conference on Applications of X-ray Analysis , 1994 , pp. 165 - 174
Copyright
Copyright © International Centre for Diffraction Data 1994

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