Md. Dawson et G. Duggan, BAND-OFFSET DETERMINATION FOR GAINP-ALGAINP STRUCTURES WITH COMPRESSIVELY STRAINED-QUANTUM-WELL ACTIVE LAYERS, Applied physics letters, 64(7), 1994, pp. 892-894
(AlGaIn)P-on-GaAs structures incorporating compressively strained Ga1-
xInxP (x>0.48) quantum well active layers have been studied by low-tem
perature photoluminescence excitation spectroscopy. The splitting betw
een the lowest energy heavy- and light-hole excitonic transitions is o
bserved to be only weakly dependent on well width over the range 25-30
0 Angstrom, for sample sets with x=0.56 and x=0.59. Envelope function
approximation fitting, based on bulk valence band dispersion calculati
ons which include the strain-induced interaction with the spin split-o
ff band, shows this splitting behavior to be a sensitive function of t
he heterojunction band offset. Conduction band discontinuities, Delta
E(c), of 0.67 Delta E(g) (x=0.56) and 0.85 Delta E(g) (x=0.59) provide
the best fit to these and all higher lying transitions for the full r
ange of structures examined, indicating that poor hole confinement is
a limiting factor in practical compressive strain (AlGaIn)P laser devi
ce performance.