Influence of the buffer layers on the morphology and the transport properties in InAs/(Al,Ga)Sb quantum wells grown by molecular beam epitaxy

The growth of modulation-doped InAs/(Al,Ga)Sb quantum wells on GaAs substrates employing molecular beam epitaxy requires care in the nucleation and the use of buffer layers to achieve high quality material. Despite a 7% lattice mismatch between the substrate and the active layers, fully relaxed epitaxial growth can be accomplished, and quantum wells with electron sheet concentrations of 7 X 10(12) cm(-2) having low-temperature mobilities as high as 300 000 cm(2)/V s have been routinely fabricated recently in our laboratory. In the present work the combination of atomic force microscopy and van der Pauw measurements is used to investigate and explain the strong influence of the buffer layers on the morphology in the quantum well that is shown to be responsible for the great differences in the observed low-temperature mobilities. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.