Epitaxial Growth of High-Quality AlGaInAs-Based Active Structures on a Directly Bonded InP-SiO2/Si Substrate

Hybrid integration of III-V materials onto silicon by wafer bonding technique is one of the mature and promising approaches to develop advanced photonic integrated devices into the silicon photonics platform (SPP). Epitaxial regrowth of III-V materials on InP thin seed layer bonded to an oxidized silicon wafer has shown its potential to extend the III-V mature multiregrowth technologies into the SPP. In the approach, an epitaxial InP layer grown on a 4 in. InP wafer is directly bonded onto a SiO2/Si 200 mm wafer. After InP substrate removal, the new template (InPoSi) is evaluated for epitaxial regrowth: an eight periods strain-compensated AlGaInAs multiquantum wells (MQW) heterostructure surrounded by two InP cladding layers is grown by metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE) simultaneously on the InPoSi substrate and on an InP substrate as a reference. For the first time, in situ reflectance and curvature measurements are carried out on InPoSi, enabling the assessment of surface roughness and thermal strain of the III-V materials during growth. High material quality is obtained as attested by X-ray diffraction, photoluminescence, atomic force microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy.