Incorporation of arsenic and phosphorus in GaxIn1-xAsyP1-y alloys grown by molecular-beam epitaxy using solid phosphorus and arsenic valved cracking cells

Growth of GaxIn1-xAsyP1-y was performed on (001) InP by molecular-beam epitaxy employing solid phosphorus and arsenic valved sources. Relative anion incorporation rates were found strongly dependent upon the Ga mole fraction, growth temperature, and incident As and P beam fluxes. The relative incorporation of As and P can be predicted from the ratio of the square of the incident column-V fluxes. Although the As anion always incorporated preferentially into the lattice, significant enhancement in P incorporation was observed as growth temperature and Ga mole fraction increased. Strong spinoidal decomposition and a temperature-dependent surface morphology was found for lattice-matched compositions having peak photoluminescence emission wavelengths between 1.25 and 1.36 mu m. Heterojunction laser diodes utilizing different GaxIn1-xAsyP1-y active regions were fabricated with emission ranging from 1.21 to 1.53 mu m. The best broad area threshold current density obtained for a 500 mu m cavity length was 1.7 kA/cm(2) with a maximum two facet slope efficiency of 0.24 W/A, which is comparable to the state-of-art performance. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.