Spontaneous Lateral Phase Separation of AlInP During Thin Film Growth and its Effect on Luminescence

Andrew Norman, Kunal Mukherjee, Austin Akey, Tonio Buonassisi, Eugene Fitzgerald

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

18 Scopus Citations

Abstract

The occurrence of spontaneous lateral phase separation during thin film growth of AlxIn1-xP by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition was investigated using a combination of transmission electron microscopy and atom probe tomography to obtain a quantitative view of this phenomenon. An anisotropic and coherent composition modulation was observed in the nearly lattice-matched films deposited below 750°C with a quasi-linear amplification with thickness that was inversely proportional to the growth temperature. The periodicity of the modulation increased exponentially with the growth temperature. A comparison of photoluminescence from phase separated and homogenous direct band gap AlxIn1-xP deposited on metamorphic InyGa1-yAs graded buffers showed a lowering of peak-emission energy in accordance with the atom probe compositional characterization without any degradation in luminous intensity. Additionally, indications of carrier trapping in the low band gap regions were observed even at room-temperature. While some of these results are in qualitative agreement with theoretical models of kinetic instability in unstrained alloy growth in the literature, significant discrepancies remain.

Original languageAmerican English
Article number115306
Number of pages11
JournalJournal of Applied Physics
Volume118
Issue number11
DOIs
StatePublished - 21 Sep 2015

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.

NREL Publication Number

  • NREL/JA-5K00-65347

Keywords

  • aluminium
  • growth
  • III-V semiconductors
  • phase separation
  • thin films
  • transmission electron microscopy (TEM)

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