Study of Dislocation-Ordered InₓGa₁₋ₓAs/GaAs Quantum Dots

A report describes an experimental study of dislocation-induced spatial ordering of quantum dots (QDs) comprising nanometer-sized InxGa1–xAs islands surrounded by GaAs. Metastable hetero-epitaxial structures were grown by molecular-beam epitaxy of InxGa1–xAs onto n+ GaAs and semi-insulating GaAs substrates. Then the structures were relaxed during a post-growth annealing/self-organizing process leading to the formation of surface undulations that acted as preferential sites for the nucleation of QDs. Structural effects of annealing times and temperatures on the strain-relaxed InxGa1–xAs/GaAs and the subsequent spatial ordering of the QDs were analyzed by atomic-force microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. Continuous-wave spectral and time-resolved photoluminescence (PL) measurements were performed to study the effects, upon optical properties, of increased QD positional ordering, increased QD uniformity, and proximity of QDs to arrays of dislocations. PL spectral peaks of ordered QD structures formed on strain-relaxed InxGa1–xAs/GaAs layers were found to be narrower than those of structures not so formed and ordered. Rise and decay times of time-resolved PL were found to be lower at lower temperatures — apparently as a consequence of decreased carrier-transport times within the barriers surrounding the QDs.