Self-assembled strained nanostructures for light emission grown using molecular beam epitaxy
III-V nanostructures are widely researched for applications in dislocation-resistant light emitters for photonic integrated circuits, quantum computing and single photon emitters. The 0D nanostructures include quantum dots (QDs), dot in a well (DWELLs), sub-monolayer QDs and droplet epitaxy QDs, while 1D elongated structures include quantum dashes and nanowires (NWs). The optical properties of nanostructures can be controlled through size, composition, strain and band-offsets during epitaxial growth and can be tailored precisely to emit light with photon energies suited to the application, spanning 0.2-2.0 eV. This thesis explores two novel QD based light emitters in the visible and near-infrared wavelength regime. In the first part of the thesis, we demonstrate the growth and characterization of tensile strained Ge QDs and Ge NWs phase segregated in the III-V matrix via Volmer-Weber growth mode emitting at 1200 nm. The second part of the thesis demonstrates the dislocation tolerance of compressively strained InP QDs grown on lattice-matched GaAs and lattice-mismatched Si substrate via Stranski-Krastanov growth mode emitting at 713 nm. The first part of the thesis explores the growth of tensile strained Ge QDs and NWs phase segregated in the III-V matrix. Epitaxial growth of phase segregated Ge nanostructures embedded within III-V compound semiconductors is a promising way to achieve a high biaxial tensile strain along with precise control of nanostructure density, size and morphology. Here we demonstrate growth of phase-segregated Ge quantum dots (QDs) and compare them to our previously reported Ge nanowires (NWs); both are strained to an In0.52Al0.48As matrix with a high biaxial tensile strain of 3.6%. Despite the similar growth conditions, there exist pronounced differences in the lateral size and planar density of Ge QDs and Ge NWs, with Ge QDs showing significantly larger size, lower density and structural anisotropy along the in-plane [1-10] direction. In addition to the difference in morphology, Ge QDs are shown to be more prone to plastic relaxation by formation of dislocations and stacking faults, which we attribute to their larger in-plane size. Finally, tensile Ge QDs are shown to exhibit strong room-temperature photoluminescence at 1176 nm, which is blueshifted from the case of Ge NWs. In the second part of the thesis, we demonstrate epitaxial InP QDs on GaAs on Si virtual substrates with room-temperature photoluminescence (PL) intensity nearly identical to those grown on GaAs substrates. The similarity in PL characteristics is remarkable considering that the active region on the GaAs/Si virtual substrate has a threading dislocation density (TDD) of ~3×10^7 cm-2, as compared to the bulk GaAs substrate with TDD < 5×10^3 cm-2. In contrast, the InGaP quantum well grown on GaAs/Si virtual substrate shows a 10× reduction in integrated PL intensity due to the presence of dislocations. The dislocation resistance of InP QDs arises from the high QD density of ~1.3×10^10 cm-2 and low lateral diffusivity of carriers due to high quantum confinement in the QDs. We also demonstrate the effect of annealing on the optical and structural properties of InP QDs on GaAs. PL measurements show > 50× improvement in the luminescence intensity of InP QDs annealed at ~700⁰C for 100 minutes without observable structural degradation or blue-shift in the PL spectrum.
Molecular beam epitaxy, Quantum wires, Quantum dots, Heterovalent epitaxy
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign