MOVPE GROWTH AND OPTICAL-PROPERTIES OF ALGAINP/GAINP STRAINED SINGLE QUANTUM-WELL STRUCTURES

AlGaInP/GaInP strained single quantum well (SSQW) structures have been grown by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy. 4.2 K photoluminescence (PL) linewidth was as narrow as 9 to 13 meV for a well thickness of 10 nm and the misfit strain over +/- 1%, indicating excellent structural quality comparable to lattice-matched QWs. The structure of room temperature PL spectra was significantly affected by the misfit strain. Comparison with a theoretical calculation confirmed that the spectra arise from a mixture of optical transitions from the n = 1 conduction subband to the n = 1 heavy-hole and to the n = 1 light-hole subband. The degree of the valence band degeneracy removal could be determined experimentally from the PL spectra.