Abstract

Many InGaAs Quantum Well (QW) structures have limited thermal stability and this limits the use of QW intermixing techniques. Rapid thermal processing (RTP) can overcome some of these restrictions. Here we report the use of RTP with dielectric cappng layers of SiO₂ and Si₃N₄ to initiate QW intermixing in strained InGaAs on GaAs substrates and unstrained InGaAs on InP substrates. The first structure contained a single 90 Å QW, with GaAs barriers with the wells under tension. The second structure contained four 100 Å InGaAs quantum wells, with 120 Å InGaAsP baniers embedded in 0.18 μm InGaAsP guiding region. The InP based system also has 1 μm InP above the QW structure and a 0.17 μm layer of InGaAs. l000 Å dielectric caps were deposited by plasma deposition on both sets of samples. To prevent Group I11 desorption during annealing proximity capping with either GaAs or InP was used throughout.

© 1992 Optical Society of America