CHARACTERIZATION OF MIXED STRAIN QUANTUM-WELL STRUCTURES

Polarization resolved photoluminescence from a cleaved sample edge (ed ge photoluminescence) is shown to be a useful tool for characterizatio n of complex multiple quantum well InP based structures with wells of different strains. The polarization resolved luminescence resulting fr om the heavy- and light-hole transitions of In0.51Ga0.49As0.78P0.22 te nsile and In0.9Ga0.1As0.52P0.48 compressive wells are found to match c losely with theoretical values, validating assignments applied to the peaks obtained from photoluminescence. Strain distribution is shown to be an important effect when quantum wells of opposite strain are mixe d together in the growth structure. The overlap of the transverse-elec tric (TE) and transverse-magnetic (TM) emissions found from edge photo luminescence on a mixed strain quantum well structure is shown to have an excellent match with the overlap of the TE and TM modes of a laser which uses the same structure in its active region. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.