In this work we study the growth mechanisms of InGaN in plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy (PAMBE). We investigate growth of InGaN layers on vicinal GaN (0001) substrates. Indium incorporation as a function of gallium and nitrogen fluxes was examined. We propose microscopic model of InGaN growth by PAMBE postulating different indium adatom incorporation mechanisms on two nonequivalent atomic step edges of wurtzite crystal. The different roles of gallium and nitrogen fluxes during the growth of InGaN layers is discussed.
We present recent progress in the growth of nitride based laser diodes (LDs) made by Plasma Assisted Molecular Beam Epitaxy (PAMBE). In this work we demonstrate LDs grown by PAMBE operating in the range 450 – 460 nm. The LDs were grown on c-plane bulk GaN substrates with threading dislocation density (TDD) ranging from 103 cm-2 to 104 cm-2. The low TDD allowed us to fabricate cw LDs with the lifetime exceeding 2000 h at 10 mW of optical output power. The maximum output power for 3 LDs array in cw mode was 280 mW and 1W in pulse mode. The low temperature growth mode in PAMBE allow for growth of AlGaN-free LDs with high In content InGaN waveguides. The key element to achieve lasing wavelengths above 450 nm was the substantial increase of the nitrogen flux available during the growth by PAMBE.
We report temperature tuning of pulsed operated InGaN LDs (5×500μm stripe,
grown on low-dislocation, high-pressure grown GaN substrates). The devices
are characterized by a rather weak temperature dependence of the threshold
current. A very broad temperature tuning range of 16nm was obtained with
increase of operation temperature by almost 200K. We were able to tune the
diode from the initial wavelength of 415nm at room temperature up to 431nm
at 201°C. After thermally cycling the device no substantial degradation was
noticed. We observed multimode emission and mode hopping with temperature
increase. At 201°C the laser's threshold current doubled and the slope efficiency
of the L-I curve dropped by 35%. These results demonstrate the potential
usage of temperature tuning of nitride-based-LDs for the atomic spectroscopy-related applications.
In this paper we present reliability study of violet, InGaN based laser diodes
grown on low dislocation density bulk GaN crystals. We observe two main
phenomena responsible for degradation in our laser diodes. One of them is the
increase of nonradiative recombination in quantum wells which is visible on
cathodoluminescence images. The second mechanisms is connected to the
increase of leakage current seems to be responsible for the observed evolution
of the characteristic temperature of laser diodes.
Violet and blue Laser diodes, as well as highly efficient high-power Light Emitting Diodes (including any UV
emitters) can be constructed using low-dislocation-density freestanding GaN substrates, either produced as thick
HVPE layers on foreign substrates, or using direct methods of crystallization as ammonothermal one or high
pressure growth from the nitrogen solution in gallium. This paper shows some of the most most important issues
concerning application of such substrates. The first issue is the choice of the substrate thickness influencing the
accommodation of strain, cracking and bowing of the samples. In this point, a new way of prestressing the
substrate by lateral patterning will be presented. The second issue is the surface preparation either by mechanical
polishing and reactive ion etching, or mechano-chemical polishing, in particular, a distribution of defects
revealed by chemical etching will be discussed. Finally, the problem of substrate misorientation influencing the
further morphology and indium incorporation into InGaN quantum wells will be shown. For higher
misorientation of the substrates, the incorporation of indium decreases , but at the same time, the fluctuations of
indium increase giving blue-shifted, weaker and broader photoluminescence peaks.
In this work we present the reliability study of InGaN violet laser diodes
fabricated by metaloorganic vapor phase epitaxy on high pressure grown bulk
GaN crystals. Our devices were tested both in cw and a pulse regime. We
found out that the degradation rate of the laser diodes does not depend on the
photon density (at least up to around 50 mW of an output optical power). We
show also that the main factor influencing the degradation rate is an operation
current density on which the degradation rate depends exponentially.
Additionally, we reconfirm that the degradation follows the square root
dependence between threshold current and time suggesting that the diffusion
may be a main mechanism causing damage of diodes.
We have used pulsed operation, wide area InGaN laser diodes in conjunction with Littrow type external
cavity to build a tunable, single mode laser operating around 398 nm. Special coatings had been applied to the
device - antireflection coating on the output mirror and high - reflector on the back facet. The tuning range
of this device was 5.5 nm, the maximum output power reached 40mW in a single mode operation. This value
compares well with the output power of an uncoupled laser diode -170mW. The coupling between the external
cavity and the internal resonator is estimated to be around 2.5% for a waveguide dimensions of 20 x 0.3 x 500&mgr;m3.
We fabricated wide-stripe laser diodes operating between 380 and 430 nm. The threshold current density for 380 and 430 nm devices (6-7 kA/cm2) was only slightly higher than for our main stream 415 nm devices (4-6 kA/cm2). Thanks to the use of high-pressure-grown low-dislocation-density substrates we succeeded in demonstration of high power optical emission both under CW and pulse operation. For the device emitting at 415 nm we were able to demonstrate 200 mW of CW optical power (20 μm wide device) and 2.7 W under pulse current operation (peak power, 50 μm device). The main obstacle for achieving CW operation of 50 μm device was to remove the excess of heat from laser chip-diamond submount assembly.
In this work we present the reliability study of low dislocation density InGaN laser diodes grown on the top of GaN monocrystalline substrates obtained by high-pressure growth technique. The active region of our lasers consists of an InGaN/InGaN multiple quantum well (MQW) emitting blue light around 415nm, placed between GaN or InGaN guiding layers and GaN/AlGaN superlattices as n- and p-cladding. We discovered two basic mechanisms of degradation in our laser diodes. The first one is characterized by a gradual increase of threshold current and stable behavior of differential quantum efficiency. In case of this mechanism the results showing square root dependence of threshold current during aging suggest that the diffusion of point defects and an enhancement in nonradiative recombination are responsible for degradation processes in our laser diodes. The second mechanism leads to a decrease of differential quantum efficiency with threshold current remaining constant. We associate this degradation mode with a gradual deterioration of dielectric mirror coatings.
Growth of GaN under pressure from solution in gallium results in almost dislocation free plate-like crystals but with size limited to app. 1-2 cm (lateral) and 100 μm (thickness) or up to about 1cm long needles. Deposition of GaN by HVPE on the pressure grown seeds allows stable crystallization (in terms of flatness of the crystallization front and uniformity of the new grown material) at a rate of about 100 μm/h on both types of seed crystals. However, in the thick GaN crystals grown on almost dislocation free plate-like substrates quite a high number of dislocations appears if the crystal thickness exceeds certain critical value. Since the critical thickness for defect generation is of the order of 100 μm, almost dislocation free layers (density below 104 cm-2) thinner than 100 μm can be grown. The most obvious further step is removing the substrate and continuation of the HVPE deposition on the free standing low dislocation density layer of sub-critical thickness. The pressure grown substrates were removed by mechanical polishing or conductivity sensitive electrochemical etching (for strongly n-type substrates). Then the HVPE low dislocation density GaN 1platelets were used as substrates for the growth of a few mm thick bulk GaN crystals. The crystals were characterized by defect selective etching of both polar (0001) and non-polar (10 -10) surfaces to check presence and distribution of structural defects. The X-ray measurements allowed concluding about character of strain and deformation in high pressure GaN-HVPE GaN system.
In this work the results of high pressure solution growth of GaN on various patterned substrates are presented. The growth on GaN/sapphire substrates patterned in GaN parallel stripes and with SixNy and Mo masks between stripes is studied and analyzed. The results are compared with the growth on patterned substrates without any mask, thus with a bare sapphire between stripes. The usefulness of tungsten and iridium for masking is also determined. The HVPE free standing GaN substrates with high stripes, up to 10 mm, are examined in details. The stripes growth modes are shown and described.
We report on the 1.5 μm intersubband absorption measured on GaInN multi-quantum wells with AlInN barriers grown by RF plasma assisted molecular beam epitaxy (PAMBE). The intersubband light absorption was
demonstrated as a function of the well width (1.3 nm - 3 nm) at the wavelength 1.4μm - 2.5 μm. The use AlInN barriers allowed to achieve strain compensated and crack free structures on GaN substrates. The preformed XRD mapping of a and c lattice constants show that AlInN/GaInN MQWs are fully strained and have up to 7% of indium in the barriers. The replacement of AlGaN by AlInN barriers opens new possibility to grow strain compensated crack free intersubband based devices like electooptical modulators and switches operating at telecommunication wavelengths.
We demonstrate the operation of wide-stripe InGaN laser diodes grown on bulk gallium nitride substrates obtained by high-pressure synthesis. The use of almost dislocation-free substrates resulted in very low defect densities of obtained laser structures - typically in the range of 105cm-2. We tested 3 types of devices of the dimensions: 20μmx500μm, 20μmx1000μm and 50μmx500μm. All three types of lasers showed good properties during pulse current experiments, exhibiting threshold currents of 400, 850 and 950 mA, respectively. The lasing wavelength varied between 405 and 420 nm, depending on the particular device. After p-down mounting on diamond heatspreaders, the first two types of lasers showed CW operation with a total output power reaching 200 mW. These devices, after optimization, offer good prognostics for reaching an optical power in the 1 W range needed for the applications in large area displays.
Up until recently the successful growth of nitride optoelectronic devices had been demonstrated only with Metal Organic Vapor Phase Epitaxy (MOVPE) due to the possibility of growth of GaN at temperatures which exceed 1000C. Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) seemed to be less adapted for this purpose. It was believed that MBE can give good results only if the growth conditions are close to these used in MOVPE reacotors. Indeed, the first successful growth of
laser diode (LDs) was obtained using ammonia MBE at temperatures as high as 950oC. The new perspective has been opened recently by successful growth of LD structures on nearly dislocation free GaN bulk substrates using Plasma Assisted MBE at much lower temperatures of 590-710oC. The laser structures are deposited on the high-pressure-grown low dislocation bulk GaN substrates taking full advantage of the so called adlayer enhanced lateral diffusion channel for adatoms below the dynamic metallic cover. Devices grown by PAMBE on bulk substrates compare very favorably to the early laser diodes fabricated using the MOVPE technique, providing evidence that the relatively low growth temperatures used in this process pose no intrinsic limitations on the quality of the optoelectronic components. This opened up a number of new possibilities to the low temperature PAMBE including high power blue LDs, green and UV LDs, and quantum cascade lasers.
High pressure grown GaN bulk crystals, because of their low defect density, are atractive for the use as substrates for blue-violet laser diode fabrication. These laser diodes are characterized by a low density of dislocations (8×104-1×105 cm-2) and thus they possibly have the best crystalline quality ever reported for this type of nitride devices. Previously, we demonstrated that these lasers are able to emit a very high optical power under pulse operation. In the present paper we will demonstrate the details of their room temperature CW operation, giving good prognostics for the further development of these devices. Preliminary estimation of the internal losses indicated a very low internal absorption in the range of 5 cm-1. The characterization of the aged devices did not reveal any dark lines or facet degradation. A correlation between the device lifetime and p-type layers growth methods will be suggested here.
High-power laser diodes emitting in the violet - UV region are needed for many applications related to data storage, full color laser projectors, pollution screening etc. This type of device is difficult to fabricate by using the presently available technology of epitaxial growth which employs the lateral overgrowth scheme to reduce the dislocation density in the active layer of the device. This paper presents a new generation of wide stripe laser diodes, which structures were coherently grown on bulk, nearly defect free GaN substrates. Thanks to a low and homogeneously distributed dislocation density (3×105cm-3), these devices are able to emit a very large optical power in excess of 2.5 W with a slope efficiency per facet of around 0.3 W/A and threshold current densities of 5-10 kA/cm2. The use of wide 15 μm stripe lowers the optical power density on the mirrors, and helps avoiding their optical damage. We believe that these devices clearly show the potential of homoepitaxy for high-power lasers applications.
In this paper we discuss the applicability of high-pressure grown bulk GaN crystals as substrates for device oriented MOVPE homoepitaxy. First, we fabricated light emitting diodes as a step towards realization of our target device: a blue light emitting laser diode. Our homoepitaxialy grown LEDs are characterized by excellent electrical characteristics and very satisfactory optical properties. Building on the experience gained during this first stage of our research we have been able to fabricate pulse current operated laser diodes emitting light at a wavelength between 397 and 430 nm. We believe that this fast progress clearly demonstrates the usefulness of bulk GaN substrates for optoelectronic devices, especially for high power laser diodes.
The article shows the most important experimental results describing the properties of nitride layers on GaN single crystals. The layers were grown using metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). The growth was monitored by in-situ laser reflectometry. The layers contain very small dislocation density of about 10 to 103 cm$min2 (the same as in GaN substrates). Morphology and crystallographic quality was examined using atomic force microscopy and X-ray diffraction. The layers have excellent photo luminescent properties which have a direct impact on the optoelectronic device properties.
Transient and quasi-steady-state photoluminescence of a dense electron-hole plasma was studied in GaN epilayers under high photoexcitation at room-temperature. High initial carrier heating up to 1100 K was observed. Decay of nonthermalized electron-hole plasma was analyzed both in homo- and heteroepitaxial GaN layers. The heating is shown to significantly influence the luminescence peak position and the rate of spontaneous and stimulated recombination. After the thermalization process is completed, the luminescence decay is exponential and the room-temperature carrier lifetime can be extracted. The lifetime in the heteroepitaxial layer grown on sapphire was found to be 190 ps, while the homoepitaxial layer exhibited an essentially higher value of 890 ps, which is one of the highest reported for free-carrier recombination in GaN. Additionally, optical gain spectra were studied using variable-stripe method. The threshold for stimulated emission was found to be considerably lower and the gain at a certain pump intensity was shown to be much higher in the homoepitaxial layer than in the heteroepitaxial one. Maximum net gain value of 300 cm-1 was observed.
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