APPLIED PHYSICS REVIEWS the Physics and Technology of Gallium
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APPLIED PHYSICS REVIEWS The physics and technology of gallium antimonide: An emerging optoelectronic material P. S. Duttaa) and H. L. Bhat Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore-560 012, India Vikram Kumar Solid State Physics Laboratory, Lucknow Road, Delhi-110 054, India ~Received 22 February 1996; accepted for publication 20 January 1997! Recent advances in nonsilica fiber technology have prompted the development of suitable materials for devices operating beyond 1.55 mm. The III–V ternaries and quaternaries ~AlGaIn!~AsSb! lattice matched to GaSb seem to be the obvious choice and have turned out to be promising candidates for high speed electronic and long wavelength photonic devices. Consequently, there has been tremendous upthrust in research activities of GaSb-based systems. As a matter of fact, this compound has proved to be an interesting material for both basic and applied research. At present, GaSb technology is in its infancy and considerable research has to be carried out before it can be employed for large scale device fabrication. This article presents an up to date comprehensive account of research carried out hitherto. It explores in detail the material aspects of GaSb starting from crystal growth in bulk and epitaxial form, post growth material processing to device feasibility. An overview of the lattice, electronic, transport, optical and device related properties is presented. Some of the current areas of research and development have been critically reviewed and their significance for both 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, various techniques employed for surface and bulk defect passivation and their effect on the device characteristics, development of novel device structures, 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 system is sufficient to understand the basic properties and what should be more vigorously pursued is their implementation for device fabrication. © 1997 American Institute of Physics. @S0021-8979~97!04109-1# TABLE OF CONTENTS 4. Metal-organic molecular beam epitaxy..... 5830 5. Plasma assisted epitaxy................. 5830 I. Importance of gallium antimonide. ............. 5822 III. Structural properties......................... 5830 II. Compound preparation and crystal growth ....... 5823 A. Lattice parameter......................... 5830 A. Phase equilibria.......................... 5823 B. Density................................. 5830 B. Bulk growth............................. 5824 C. Crystal structure.......................... 5830 1. Czochralski technique.................. 5825 IV. Thermal properties.......................... 5830 2. Bridgman technique.................... 5825 A. Heat capacity and Debye temperature......... 5830 3. Vertical gradient freeze technique......... 5826 B. Elastic moduli and phonon dispersion......... 5831 4. Travelling heater method................ 5826 C. Thermal expansion........................ 5832 5. Liquid phase electro-epitaxy............. 5826 D. Thermal conductivity...................... 5832 6. Growth under microgravity.............. 5826 7. Growth under hypergravity.............. 5827 V. Electronic and transport properties ............. 5834 8. Bulk growth of GaSb based ternaries...... 5827 A. Band structure............................ 5834 C. Epitaxial growth.......................... 5828 B. Effective masses of electrons and holes....... 5835 1. Liquid phase epitaxy................... 5828 C. Electron transport......................... 5835 2. Vapour phase epitaxy................... 5829 D. Hole transport............................ 5837 3. Molecular beam epitaxy................. 5829 E. Magnetophonon effect..................... 5839 F. Electron and hole transport in ternaries....... 5839 VI. Optical properties........................... 5840 a! Present address: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Aeronautical En- A. Dielectric constant........................ 5840 gineering and Mechanics, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12180. Electronic mail: [email protected] B. Photoconduction.......................... 5840 J. Appl. Phys. 81 (9), 1 May 1997 0021-8979/97/81(9)/5821/50/$10.00 © 1997 American Institute of Physics 5821 Downloaded¬26¬Apr¬2003¬to¬128.113.123.115.¬Redistribution¬subject¬to¬AIP¬license¬or¬copyright,¬see¬http://ojps.aip.org/japo/japcr.jsp C. Photoelectric threshold and work function..... 5841 D. Nonlinear optical effect.................... 5841 E. Radiative recombination and stimulated emission................................ 5841 VII. Defects and impurities...................... 5841 A. Extended defects.......................... 5841 B. Native defects............................ 5842 C. Shallow dopant impurities.................. 5843 D. Deep level impurities...................... 5844 E. Magnetic impurities....................... 5845 F. Isotopic effects........................... 5845 G. Self- and impurity diffusion................. 5845 H. Ion bombardment induced defects............ 5846 VIII. Surface and bulk defect passivation .......... 5846 A. Wet chemical treatment.................... 5846 B. Hydrogen plasma passivation............... 5847 FIG. 1. Band gap as a function of lattice constant for III–V compounds and C. a-Si:H passivation........................ 5848 their ternary and quaternary alloys ~from Ref. 5!. IX. Device aspects............................. 5849 A. Wafer preparation......................... 5849 material because its lattice parameter matches solid solutions B. Dry etching.............................. 5850 of various ternary and quaternary III–V compounds whose C. Atomically clean surfaces.................. 5850 band gaps cover a wide spectral range from ;0.3 to 1.58 D. Fabrication techniques..................... 5850 eV,3 i.e., 0.8–4.3 mm, as depicted in Fig. 1. Also, detection 1. Ohmic contacts........................ 5850 of longer wavelengths, 8–14 mm, is possible with intersub- 2. Schottky contacts...................... 5853 band absorption in antimonide based superlattices.4 These 3. Oxides............................... 5853 have stimulated a lot of interest in GaSb for basic research as 4. Homojunctions........................ 5854 well as device fabrication. Some of the important material 5. Heterojunctions........................ 5854 properties of GaSb are listed in Table I.5 E. Device structures......................... 5856 From device point of view, GaSb based structures have 1. Metal/a-Si:H/GaSb structures............ 5856 shown potentiality for applications in laser diodes with low 2. Injection lasers........................ 5857 threshold voltage,6,7 photodetectors with high quantum 3. Photodetectors and solar cells............ 5858 efficiency,8 high frequency devices,9,10 superlattices with tai- 4. Transistors............................ 5859 lored optical and transport characteristics,11 booster cells in 5. Quantum wells, quantum dots and tandem solar cell arrangements for improved efficiency of superlattices.......................... 5860 photovoltaic cells and high efficiency thermophotovoltaic X. Concluding remarks and future outlook . ........ 5863 ~TPV! cells.12 Interestingly, the spin-orbit splitting of the va- lence band is almost equal to the energy band gap in GaSb I. IMPORTANCE OF GALLIUM ANTIMONIDE leading to high hole ionization coefficients. This results in significant improvement in the signal-to-noise ratio at l Historically, the research and development of various . 1.3 mm in GaAlSb avalanche photodetectors grown on III–V compound semiconductors is associated with the GaSb.8 GaSb is also predicted to have a lattice limited elec- wavelength of the optical fiber loss minima.1 The shift in the tron mobility greater than GaAs making it of potential inter- fiber loss minima towards higher wavelengths from 0.8 mm est in the fabrication of microwave devices. InGaSb has been over the past 2 decades has shifted the material of interest proposed as an ideal material for transferred-electron devices from time to time.1 Even though the present day optical com- by Hilsum and Rees10 with a low threshold yield and a large munication systems are tuned to 1.55 mm, the next genera- velocity peak-to-valley ratio, using a Monte Carlo simulation tion systems may have to be operated well above this wave- based on the three-level model. length. This is because recent developments in the optical GaSb-based devices are promising candidates for a vari- fiber research have shown potentiality for certain classes of ety of military and civil applications in the 2–5 and 8–14 nonsilica fibers for optical communication applications mm regimes:13 to mention a few, infrared ~IR! imaging sen- whose loss minima fall in the 2–4 mm range.2 For example, sors for missile and surveillance systems ~focal plane arrays!, the heavy metal fluoride glasses are speculated to have mini- fire detection and monitoring environmental pollution. The mum attenuation at 2.55 mm with a loss, one to two orders of absorption wavelengths of several industrial gases and water magnitude lower than the present day silica fibers. This is vapour lie in the near IR range for which GaSb based alloys also important since, at longer wavelengths, loss due to Ray- are suitable. Gas purity monitoring and