THE PHYSICS AND TECHNOLOGY OF GALLIUM ANTIMONIDE - AN EMERGING OPTOELECTRONIC MATERIAL

Recent advances in nonsilica fiber technology have prompted the develo pment of suitable materials for devices operating beyond 1.55 mu m. Th e III-V ternaries and quaternaries (AlGaIn)(AsSb) lattice matched to G aSb seem to be the obvious choice and have turned out to be promising candidates for high speed electronic and long wavelength photonic devi ces. Consequently, there has been tremendous upthrust in research acti vities of GaSb-based systems. As a matter of fact, this compound has p roved to be an interesting material for both basic and applied researc h. At present, GaSb technology is in its infancy and considerable rese arch has to be carried out before it can be employed for large scale d evice fabrication. This article presents an up to date comprehensive a ccount of research carried out hitherto. It explores in detail the mat erial aspects of GaSb starting from crystal growth in bulk and epitaxi al form, post growth material processing to device feasibility. An ove rview of the lattice, electronic, transport, optical and device relate d properties is presented. Some of the current areas of research and d evelopment have been critically reviewed and their significance for bo th understanding the basic physics as well as for device applications are addressed. These include the role of defects and impurities on the structural, optical and electrical properties of the material, variou s techniques employed for surface and bulk defect passivation and thei r effect on the device characteristics, development of novel device st ructures, etc. Several avenues where further work is required in order to upgrade this III-V compound for optoelectronic devices are listed. It is concluded that the present day knowledge in this material syste m is sufficient to understand the basic properties and what should be more vigorously pursued is their implementation for device fabrication . (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.