Low-pressure metal organic chemical vapor deposition growth of indium arsenic antimony phosphide based materials for infrared laser applications.

摘要

Mid-infrared lasers emitting from 3 to 5 μm have a growing number of applications. Semiconductor lasers are well suited for these applications because of their intrinsic advantages of wide wavelength coverage, low cost, simplicity of operation, and compact packaging. However, currently available coherent semiconductor mid-infrared emitters suffer from low output power, low power conversion efficiency, and low operation temperature. These operating characteristics prohibit their implementation into widespread applications.; The objective of this work is to grow high quality InAsSbP materials on InAs substrates by low-pressure metal-organic chemical vapor deposition for use in double heterostructure and strained-layer superlattice infrared lasers.; The quality of the InAsSbP based materials has been appraised by structural, optical, and electrical characterization techniques. The structural quality has been quantified by high-resolution x-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and atomic force microscopy. The optical characteristics of the epilayers has been measured with photoluminescence. Finally, electrochemical capacitance-voltage measurements have been performed on InAsSbP materials for the first time and provide accurate electrical characterization.; InAsSb/InAsSbP double heterostructure lasers with output powers of 1.6 W and 450 mW per two facets have been measured in pulsed and continuous modes respectively. Additionally, differential efficiencies of over 90% and threshold current densities of 40 A/cm2 are also reported. Using another double heterostructure design which employs an AlAsSb layer, pulsed output power has been measured as high as 6.7 W.; In order to cover the entire 3–5 μm wavelength region, strained-layered superlattice lasers were employed. Lasers fabricated with the InAsP/InAsSb superlattice alloy produced laser oscillation at λ = 4.0 μm with output powers as high as 546 mW and 94 mW in pulsed and cw modes respectively. The InAs/InAsSb superlattice alloy also has been used for the active region of lasers with λ = 3.8–4.0 μm. At low temperature, these lasers emit with very high power: up to 1.0 W with λ = 3.8 μm, and 842 mW with λ = 4.0 μm. Finally, InAsSb/InAsSb superlattice lasers have also been employed and have demonstrated a wide range of emission flexibility. Laser oscillation between 4.2 and 4.8 μm has been measured with powers as high as 460 mW.