SECONDARY ION MASS-SPECTROMETRY ANALYSIS OF BE DOPED GAAS ALGAAS HETEROSTRUCTURES

Secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) has been used to study the depth profiles of beryllium (Be) incorporation and diffusion in GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures of graded index separate confinement heterostructure quantum well lasers. The epilayers were grown by molecular-beam epitaxy with a thermally cracked AS2 source. The Ga-As quantum well was Be-doped with Be at 2 X 10(19) cm-3 using a substrate growth temperature of 580-degrees-C and the Al0.4Ga0.6As confinement layers were grown at 630-degrees-C. SIMS measurements show negligible diffusion of Be under these growth conditions. SIMS depth profiling was also used to resolve thin (2 nm) GaAs smoothing layers incorporated in Al0.4Ga0.6As confinement layers.