ALGAINP ALGAAS DOUBLE-HETEROSTRUCTURE LIGHT-EMITTING DIODE GROWN BY LIQUID-PHASE EPITAXY/

AlGaInP is the most promising material for visible wavelength light so urces for laser-printing and audio compact disc systems. Unfortunately , it is difficult to grow controllably this crystal by conventional li quid phase epitaxy (LPE) growth, due to the extremely large distributi on coefficient of Al in the In melt. In this work, the AlGaInP layers have been grown in a very short time on an Al0.9Ga0.1As buffer layer f rom a non-equilibrium solution with a very high Al fraction. The AlGaI nP source melt was prepared by changing the Al mole fraction for a fix ed value of Ga and P mole fractions which were for InGaP lattice-match ed to GaAs. A mirror-like surface has been obtained at an Al mole frac tion X(Al)1 between 1.96 x 10(-5) and 3.21 x 10(-4). Photoluminescence measurements indicated that the peak wavelength shifted to the shorte r side and show that Al was incorporated into the crystals. The shorte st peak wavelength observed at room temperature was 635 nm from the Al GaInP layer grown at X(Al)1 = 3.21 x 10(-4) AlGaAs/AlGaInP/AlGaAs doub le heterostructure (DH) light emitting diodes (LEDs) were fabricated b y this growth method with X(Al)1 = 1.82 x 10(-4). The electroluminesce nce (EL) emission peak at 645 nm with full width at half maximum of 66 meV was obtained at room temperature.