Optical method of estimation of degree of atomic ordering within quaternary semiconductor alloys Related Articles Optical method of estimation of degree of atomic ordering within quaternary semiconductor alloys

Abstract

Effect of light Si-doping on the near-band-edge emissions in high quality GaN J. Appl. Phys. 112, 053104 (2012) Nucleation features and energy levels of type-II InAsSbP quantum dots grown on InAs(100) substrate Appl. Phys. Lett. 101, 093103 (2012) Optomechanical photoabsorption spectroscopy of exciton states in GaAs Appl. Phys. Lett. 101, 082107 (2012) Light emission lifetimes in p-type δ-doped GaAs/AlAs multiple quantum wells near the Mott transition J. Appl. Phys. 112, 043105 (2012) Impact of substrate-induced strain and surface effects on the optical properties of InP nanowires Appl. Phys. Lett. 101, 072101 (2012) Additional information on J. Appl. Phys. It is well known that within metal-organic vapor-phase epitaxy grown semiconductor ternary alloys atomically ordered regions are spontaneously formed during the epitaxial growth. This ordering leads to bandgap reduction and to valence bands splitting, and therefore to anisotropy of the photoluminescence emission polarization. The same phenomenon occurs within quaternary semiconductor alloys. While the ordering in ternary alloys is widely studied, for quaternaries there have been only a few detailed experimental studies of it, probably because of the absence of appropriate methods of its detection. Here, we propose an optical method to reveal atomic ordering within quaternary alloys by measuring the photoluminescence (PL) emission polarization. The measured and calculated angular dependencies of the polarized PL emission intensity from (100) surface for two semiconductor alloys: Ga 0.51 In 0.49 P and (Al 0.3 Ga 0.7 ) 0.5 In 0.5 P are compared in order to estimate the degree of atomic ordering within these alloys. The method shows that the quaternary (Al 0.3 Ga 0.7 ) 0.5 In 0.5 P alloy is a highly ordered structure with the value of the atomic ordering degree close to 0.5. V C 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://d