METALORGANIC MOLECULAR-BEAM EPITAXY OF STRAIN-COMPENSATED INASP INGAASP MULTI-QUANTUM-WELL LASERS/

Strain-compensated InAsP/InGaAsP multi-quantum-wells (MQWs) grown by m etalorganic molecular beam epitaxy (MOMBE) are characterized by conven tional photoluminescence (PL), micro-FL, transmission electron microsc opy, and x-ray diffraction measurements and applied to fabricate 1.3 m u m wavelength laser diodes. These methods reveal that there is no det erioration in the optical properties or structure of strain-compensate d MQWs having up to 25 wells, which means that the critical thickness of InAsP grown by MOMBE exceeds 1000 Angstrom. The critical conditions of strain and thickness over which misfit dislocations are generated are determined for the MQWs. The MQW lasers with ten wells (L(z)=55 An gstrom) have no misfit dislocations and have uniform threshold current densities of 0.9+/-0.1 kA/cm(2). The maximum operating temperature T- max of the lasers increases with increasing well number, the highest T -max is 155 degrees C, which is obtained for MQW lasers with 15 wells. The lasers have no problems in terms of long-term reliability. (C) 19 96 American Institute of Physics.