Comparison of luminescent efficiency of InGaAs quantum well structures grown on Si, GaAs, Ge, and SiGe virtual substrate

In order to study the luminescent efficiency of InGaAs quantum wells on Si via SiGe interlayers, identical In0.2Ga0.8As quantum well structures with GaAs and Al0.25Ga0.75As cladding layers were grown on several substrates by an atmospheric metalorganic vapor deposition system. The substrates used include GaAs, Si, Ge, and SiGe virtual substrates. The SiGe virtual substrates were graded from Si substrates to 100% Ge content. Because of the small lattice mismatch between GaAs and Ge (0.07%), high-quality GaAs-based thin films with threading dislocation densities <3×106 cm−2 were realized on these SiGe substrates. Quantitative cathodoluminescence was used to compare the luminescent efficiency of the quantum well structure on the different substrates and cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy was used to characterize dislocation densities. Our results show that the InGaAs quantum wells grown on the GaAs substrates have the highest luminescent efficiencies due to the lowest dislocation densities. Int...