IMPLANTATION-INDUCED DAMAGE IN III V-HETEROSTRUCTURES/

Argon ions tit an energy in the range of 100 keV were implanted in pat terned and unpatterned GaInAs/GaAs quantum well structures to investig ate the lateral and vertical extent of the implantation induced defect profile. The degradation of the photoluminescence emission intensity of implanted quantum well layers at well defined positions below the s ample's surface was used as a local probe for the damage. The depth pr ofile of the long ranging exponential tails of the damage distribution s could be determined as a function of the crystal orientation with a sensitivity between 1 X 10(14) and 1 X 10(18) defects/cm(3) In additio n, the lateral spread of the damage profile was evaluated by measuring the quantum efficiency as a function of the implantation mask width. In comparison to randomly implanted samples the implantations along a crystallographic axis show a clear increase of the longitudinal damage range and a reduced lateral spread.