Continuous-wave operation of extremely low-threshold GaAs/AlGaAs broad-area injection lasers on (100)Si substrates at room temperature

Room-temperature continuous-wave operation of large-area (120 μm X 980 μm) GaAs/AlGaAs graded-refractive-index separate-confinement heterostructure lasers on (100) Si substrates has been obtained. Minimum threshold-current densities of 214 A/cm2 (1900-μm cavity length), maximum slope efficiencies of about 0.8 W/A (600-μm cavity length), and optical power in excess of 270 mW/facet (900-μm cavity length) have been observed under pulsed conditions

Contactless electroreflectance, in the range of 20 K \u3c T \u3c 300 K, of freestanding wurtzite GaN prepared by hydride-vapor-phase epitaxy

We have performed a detailed contactless electroreflectance study of the interband excitonic transitions on both the Ga and N faces of a 200-μm-thick freestanding hydride-vapor-phase-epitaxy grown wurtzite GaN sample with low defect concentration in the temperature range between 20 and 300 K. The transition energies of the A, B, and C excitons and broadening parameters of the A and B excitons have been determined by least-square fits to the first derivative of a Lorentzian line shape. The energy positions and separations of the excitonic transitions in the sample reveal the existence of residual strain. At 20 K the broadening parameter of A exciton deduced for the Ga (5×105 dislocation cm−2) and N (1×107 dislocation cm−2) faces are 3 and 7 meV, respectively, indicating a lower defect concentration on the former face. The parameters that describe the temperature dependence of the interband transition energies of the A, B, and C excitons as well as the broadening function of the A and B features are evaluated. The results from an analysis of the temperature dependence of the broadening function of excitons A and B indicate that GaN exhibits a very large exciton-phonon coupling

Very low threshold AlGaAs/GaAs lasers grown on tilted (100) GaAs Substrates by Molecular Beam Epitaxy

The threshold current density of semiconductor lasers has seen a rapid and considerable reduction in recent years. The progress however, appeared to slow down giving rise to speculations that perhaps the fundamental limits were being approached. It is always however, very delicate to separate bottlenecks associated with the technology from the fundamental properties particularly during the development phase. In this paper, we show that threshold current densities as low as 80 A/cm^2 can be obtained in optimized graded refractive index AlGaAs/GaAs lasers with quantum well thicknesses of about 100 Å

High efficiency single quantum well graded-index separate-confinement heterostructure lasers fabricated with MeV oxygen ion implantation

Single quantum well AlGaAs/GaAs graded-index separate-confinement heterostructure lasers have been fabricated using MeV oxygen ion implantation plus optimized subsequent thermal annealing. A high differential quantum efficiency of 85% has been obtained in a 360-µm-long and 10-µm-wide stripe geometry device. The results have also demonstrated that excellent electrical isolation (breakdown voltage of over 30 V) and low threshold currents (22 mA) can be obtained with MeV oxygen ion isolation. It is suggested that oxygen ion implantation induced selective carrier compensation and compositional disordering in the quantum well region as well as radiation-induced lattice disordering in AlxGa1–xAs/GaAs may be mostly responsible for the buried layer modification in this fabrication process

Submilliamp threshold InGaAs-GaAs strained layer quantum-well laser

Strained-layer InGaAs-GaAs single-quantum-well buried-heterostructure lasers were fabricated by a hybrid beam epitaxy and liquid-phase epitaxy technique. Very low threshold currents, 2.4 mA for an uncoated laser (L=425 μm) and 0.75 mA for a coated laser (R~0.9, L=198 μm), were obtained. A 3-dB modulation bandwidth of 7.6 GHz was demonstrated at low bias current (14 mA). Procedures for material preparation and device fabrication are introduced

Illumination and annealing characteristics of two-dimensional electron gas systems in metal-organic vapor-phase epitaxy grown AlGaN/AlN/GaN heterostructures

We studied the persistent photoconductivity (PPC) effect in AlGaN/AlN/GaN heterostructures with two different Al-compositions (x=0.15 and x=0.25). The two-dimensional electron gas formed at the AlN/GaN heterointerface was characterized by Shubnikov-de Haas and Hall measurements. Using optical illumination, we were able to increase the carrier density of the Al0.15Ga0.85N/AlN/GaN sample from 1.6x10^{12} cm^{-2} to 5.9x1012 cm^{-2}, while the electron mobility was enhanced from 9540 cm2/Vs to 21400 cm2/Vs at T = 1.6 K. The persistent photocurrent in both samples exhibited a strong dependence on illumination wavelength, being highest close to the bandgap and decreasing at longer wavelengths. The PPC effect became fairly weak for illumination wavelengths longer than 530 nm and showed a more complex response with an initial negative photoconductivity in the infrared region of the spectrum (>700 nm). The maximum PPC-efficiency for 390 nm illumination was 0.011% and 0.005% for Al0.25Ga0.75N/AlN/GaN and Al0.15Ga0.85N/AlN/GaN samples, respectively. After illumination, the carrier density could be reduced by annealing the sample. Annealing characteristics of the PPC effect were studied in the 20-280 K temperature range. We found that annealing at 280 K was not sufficient for full recovery of the carrier density. In fact, the PPC effect occurs in these samples even at room temperature. Comparing the measurement results of two samples, the Al0.25Ga0.75N/AlN/GaN sample had a larger response to illumination and displayed a smaller recovery with thermal annealing. This result suggests that the energy scales of the defect configuration-coordinate diagrams for these samples are different, depending on their Al-composition.Comment: 27 pages, 8 figure

Growth optimization and structural analysis for ferromagnetic Mn-doped ZnO layers deposited by radio frequency magnetron sputtering

The effect of the deposition temperature on the crystalline quality of (Zn,Mn)O is investigated in thin films prepared by radio frequency magnetronsputtering on c-plane sapphire and GaN substrates. The layers are made of a 0.5μm Mn-doped layer towards the surface on top of a 150nm pure ZnO buffer. Depending on the deposition temperature, the layers can exhibit a columnar structure; the adjacent domains are rotated from one another by 90°, putting [101¯0]and [11¯20] directions face to face. At high Mn concentration the columnar structure is blurred by the formation of Mn rich precipitates. Only one variety of domains is observed at an optimal deposition temperature of 500°C: they are slightly rotated around the [0001] axis (mosaic growth) and bounded by threading dislocations

Ultralow threshold graded-index separate-confinement heterostructure single quantum well (Al,Ga)As lasers

Broad area graded‐index separate‐confinement heterostructure single quantum well lasers grown by molecular‐beam epitaxy (MBE) with threshold current density as low as 93 A/cm^2 (520 μm long) have been fabricated. Buried lasers formed from similarly structured MBE material with liquid phase epitaxy regrowth had threshold currents at submilliampere levels when high reflectivity coatings were applied to the end facets. A cw threshold current of 0.55 mA was obtained for a laser with facet reflectivities of ∼80%, a cavity length of 120 μm, and an active region stripe width of 1 μm. These devices driven directly with logic level signals have switch‐on delays <50 ps without any current prebias. Such lasers permit fully on–off switching while at the same time obviating the need for bias monitoring and feedback control

Two-subband conduction in a gated high density InAlN/AlN/GaN heterostructure

Magnetotransport measurements on an In0.16Al0.84N/AlN/GaN gated Hall bar sample have been performed at 0.28 K. By the application of a gate voltage we were able to vary the total two-dimensional electron gas density from 1.83×1013 to 2.32×1013 cm−2. Two frequency Shubnikov–de Haas oscillations indicate occupation of two subbands by electrons. The density of electrons in the first and second sublevels are found to increase linearly with gate voltage with a slope of 2.01×1012 cm−2/V and 0.47×1012 cm−2/V, respectively. And the quantum lifetimes for the first and second subbands ranged from 0.55 to 0.95×10−13 s and from 1.2 to 2.1×10−13 s

Energy relaxation probed by weak antilocalization measurements in GaN heterostructures

Energy relaxation and electron-phonon (e-p) interaction are investigated in wurtzite Al0.15Ga0.85N/AlN/GaN and Al0.83In0.17N/AlN/GaN heterostructures with polarization induced two-dimensional electron gases in the Bloch–Grüneisen regime. Weak antilocalization (WAL) and Shubnikov–de Haas measurements were performed on gated Hall bar structures at temperatures down to 0.3 K. We used WAL as a thermometer to measure the electron temperature Te as a function of the dc bias current. We found that the power dissipated per electron, Pe, was proportional to T4e due to piezoelectric acoustic phonon emission by hot electrons. We calculated Pe as a function of Te without any adjustable parameters for both the static and the dynamic screening cases of piezoelectric e-p coupling. In the temperature range of this experiment, the static screening case was expected to be applicable; however, our data was in better agreement with the dynamic screening case