InGaAs/GaAs(P) quantum well intermixing induced by Si impurity diffusion

Catastrophic Optical Mirror Damage (COMD) on the cavity surface is one of the main factors that restrict the output power and reliability of semiconductor lasers. Quantum well intermixing technology is one of the most commonly used methods to avoid COMD. Si impurity-induced quantum well intermixing technology is explored for high-power, high-reliability laser diode devices. In this paper, a silicon dielectric layer is used as the diffusion source for a study of silicon impurity-induced disordering by annealing in a tube furnace. The effects of the dielectric film thickness, annealing conditions, quantum barrier material and sacrificial layer material on the wavelength blue shift of InGaAs/GaAs(P) quantum wells were analyzed. It is found that the degree of intermixing between quantum well and barrier increases with the increasing of annealing time and temperature, but is particularly sensitive to temperature. The wavelength blue shift of the InGaAs/GaAsP structure is 70.5 nm under 780 degrees C annealing temperature at a duration of 10 hours. Also, the GaAsP barrier structure has a larger blue shift than the GaAs barrier, and the epitaxial layer with an InGaP sacrificial layer has a larger blue shift than the AlGaAs sacrificial layer.