Properties of Al<i>x</i>Ga1−<i>x</i>As (<i>x</i>Al≂0.3) grown by molecular-beam epitaxy on misoriented substrates

Abstract

The effects of substrate misorientation on the morphological and optical properties of AlxGa1−xAs (xAl≂0.3) grown by molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE) have been studied. The substrate temperatures and V/III beam-flux ratios used were such that layers grown on nominally (100) substrates typically exhibited rough morphologies and poor 4.2 K PL characteristics. By intentionally misorienting the substrate slightly from (100), smooth layers can be grown at 620 and 650 °C at typical MBE growth rates (≂1 μm/h). These smooth layers also exhibited sharp, exciton-related emission peaks at 4.2 K with half-widths as narrow as 5 meV. Since rough surfaces may lead to poor interfaces between GaAs and (Al,Ga)As and in turn to degraded performance in heterojunction devices, the present results may have significant implications for the performance of such structures grown by MBE.