Proton-implantation-induced photoluminescence enhancement in self-assembled InAs/GaAs quantum dots

Abstract

We have used proton-implantation-induced intermixing and a passivation effect to enhance the light-emission efficiency in multilayer InAs/GaAs quantum dots (QDs). Photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy is used to study both the intermixing and passivation effects. Besides the blueshift of the luminescence peak due to the intermixing-induced energy band variation, a six times higher PL intensity increase is observed, relative to that of as-grown QDs, with a proton implantation dose of 5×1013 cm−2 followed by rapid thermal annealing at 700 °C. These effects are beneficial to both the quantum efficiency and the wavelength tuning of optoelectronic devices.