Abstract

Progress ip epitaxial growth techniques has enabled us to explore low-dimensional quantum-confined structures. Because of the nature of epitaxy, such growth techniques can directly produce only quantum-well structures on flat surfaces. Other techniques are used to define confinement structures normal to the growth direction, which leads to quantum wires and dots. A high-quality interface is crucial to the realization of such low-dimensional quantum-confined structures. In this paper we present an in situ thermal-etch and regrowth process that is used to fabricate quantum wire arrays. Forty periods of 60 nm AlAs and 30 nm GaAs layers were grown on 100 GaAs. Stripes 10 μm and parallel to [011] were defined by photolithography. V-grooves were formed by a facet-exposing wet etching process. Selective thermal etching was then performed in the growth chamber. After thermal etching, 20 nm AlAs, 20 nm GaAs, 200 nm AlAs, and 100 nm GaAs layers were grown. Quantum wire arrays were formed in the regrown 20 nm GaAs. The quantum wire is triangular because of orientational preferential growth. In this process, all dimensions are determined solely by the thickness of the epitaxial layers. Details of the optical properties of the quantum wire array will be reported.

© 1990 Optical Society of America