Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-45l2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T04:17:34.350Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Use of Strain to Optimize Quantum Well Device Performance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2011

Emil S. Koteles
Emil S. Koteles*
Affiliation:
GTE Laboratories Incorporated, Waltham, MA 02254
Get access

Abstract

Recently, conventional wisdom has reversed its view on the disadvantages of strain in active semiconductor devices. Now lattice-mismatch-induced biaxial strain is being actively studied as a technique for optimizing bulk and quantum well (QW) device performance. It has been realized that, in addition to permitting once inaccessible energy ranges to be reached, strain has the potential of altering the properties of energy bands in a precise and advantageous manner provided that care is taken that the strain remain pseudomorphic (i.e., that the critical thickness, beyond which the layer relaxes with detrimental effects on quality, not be exceeded).

This paper reviews progress in this field including techniques for determining the magnitude of pseudomorphic strain in single QWs, and recent theory and experiments detailing the advantages which strain, both compressive and tensile, can bring to QW laser diodes. The use of strain to balance the polarization anisotropy inherent in QW structures is also discussed. Finally, a novel use of biaxial tensile strain in the barriers of QW devices to minimize polarization sensitivity is introduced. The idea is to create a structure in which the light and heavy hole valence bands are degenerate, as in bulk material, but which still retains the advantages of QWs (higher quantum and differential quantum efficiency, etc.).

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 281: Symposium D – Semiconductor Heterostructures for Photonic and Electronic Applications , 1992 , 141
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

1 Adams, A.R., Electron. Lett., 22, 249 (1986).Google Scholar
2 Yablonovitch, E. and Kane, E.O., J. Lightwave Tech. LT–4, 504 (1986); J. Lightwave Tech. LT-4, 961 (1986).Google Scholar
3 Chong, T.C. and Fonstad, C.G., IEEE J. of Quantum Electron. 25, 171 (1989).Google Scholar
4 Koteles, Emil S., Elman, B., Melman, P., Bertolet, D.C., Hsu, Jung-Kuei, and Lau, Kei May, 20th International Conference on the Physics of Semiconductors (Anastassakis, E.M. and Joannopoulos, J.D., editors, World Scientific, Singapore, 1990), page 965.Google Scholar
5 Koteles, Emil S., Elman, B., Lee, Johnson, Charbonneau, S., and Thewalt, M.W.L., Quantum Well and Superlattice Physics III, Doehler, Gottfried, Koteles, Emil S., and Schulman, Joel, editors, Proc. SPIE 1283, page 143 (1990).Google Scholar
6 Koteles, Emil S., Advanced III-V Compound Semiconductor Growth, Processing, and Devices (Pearton, S.J., Sadana, D.K., and Zavada, J.M., editors) Materials Research Society Symposium Proceedings, Vol. 240 (Materials Research Society, Pittsburgh, 1992), page 99.Google Scholar
7 Koteles, Emil S., Owens, D., Elman, B., Melman, P., Bertolet, D.C., and Lau, Kei May, Layered Structures - Heteroepitaxy, Superlattices, Strain, and Metastability (Dodson, B., Schowalter, L.J., Cunningham, J.E., and Pollak, F.H., editors) Materials Research Society Symposium Proceedings, Vol. 160 (Materials Research Society, Pittsburgh, 1990), page 649.Google Scholar
8 Okayasu, M., Takeshita, T., Yamada, M., Kogure, O., Horiguchi, M., Fukuda, M., Kozen, A., Oe, K., and Uehara, S., Electron. Lett., 25, 1563 (1989).Google Scholar
9 Waters, R.G., Dalby, R.J., Baumann, J.A., De Sanctis, J.L., and Shepard, A.H., IEEE Photon. Tech. Lett. 3, 409 (1991);Google Scholar
Yellen, S.L., Waters, R.G., Chen, Y.C., Soltz, B.A., Fisher, S.E., Fekete, D., Ballantyme, J.M., Electron. Lett. 26, 2083 (1990).Google Scholar
10 Thijs, P.J.A., Tiemeijer, L.F., Kuindersma, P.I., Binsma, J.J.M., and van Dongen, T., IEEE J. Quantum. Electron. 27, 1426 (1991).Google Scholar
11 Ghiti, A., O'Reilly, E.P., and Adams, A.R., Electron. Lett., 25, 821 (1989).Google Scholar
12 Thijs, P.J.A. and van Dongen, T., Electron. Lett., 25, 1735 (1989)Google Scholar
13 Kasukawa, A., Bhat, R., Zah, C.E., Koza, M.A., Schwartz, S.A., and Lee, T.P., 49th Annual Device Research Conference, Boulder, CO, 1991, paper IIA-2.Google Scholar
14 O'Reilly, E.P., Jones, G., Ghiti, A., and Adams, A.R., Electron. Lett., 27, 1417 (1991).Google Scholar
15 Ring, W.S., Adams, A.R., Thijs, P.J.A., and Van Dongen, T., Electron. Lett. 28, 569 (1992).Google Scholar
16 see, for example, chapter 23 in Quantum Semiconductor Structures by Claude Weisbuch and Borge Vinter (Academic Press, Inc., Boston, 1991).Google Scholar
17 Magari, K., Okamoto, M., Yasaka, H., Sato, K., Noguchi, Y., and Mikami, O., IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, 2, 556 (1990).Google Scholar
18 Tiemeijer, L.F., Thijs, P.J.A., Dongen, T.v., Slootweg, R.W.M., van der Heijden, J.M.M., Binsma, J.J.M., and Krijn, M.P.C.M., European Conference on Optical Communication, Berlin, 1992, paper Th PD II.6.Google Scholar
19 Wan, H.W., Chong, T.C., and Chua, S.J., IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, 3, 730 (1991).Google Scholar
20 Koteles, Emil S., Bulletin of the American Physical Society 37, 690 (1992).Google Scholar