Optical Characterization of AlAsSb Digital Alloy and Random Alloy on GaSb

Abstract

III-(As, Sb) alloys are building blocks for various advanced optoelectronic devices, but the growth of their ternary or quaternary materials are commonly limited by spontaneous formation of clusters and phase separations during alloying. Recently, digital alloy growth by molecular beam epitaxy has been widely adopted in preference to conventional random alloy growth because of the extra degree of control offered by the ordered alloying. In this article, we provide a comparative study of the optical characteristics of AlAsSb alloys grown lattice-matched to GaSb using both techniques. The sample grown by digital alloy technique showed stronger photoluminescence intensity, narrower peak linewidth, and larger carrier activation energy than the random alloy technique, indicating an improved optical quality with lower density of non-radiative recombination centers. In addition, a relatively long carrier lifetime was observed from the digital alloy sample, consistent with the results obtained from the photoluminescence study.

Keywords

• digital alloy
• random alloy
• epitaxy
• molecular beam epitaxy
• ternary alloy
• aluminum arsenide antimonide
• gallium antimonide
• photoluminescence