Photoluminescence microscopy investigation of lattice relaxation and defect formation processes in pseudomorphically strained InGaAsN multiple quantum wells

Photoluminescence microscopy (PLM) and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy have been used to investigate the influences of the number of quantum wells (QWs) and nitrogen concentration [N] on the quality of InGaAsN multiple QWs (MQWs). No misfit dislocations and/or carrier localization were observed in as-grown InGaAsN MQWs. PL measurement results suggest that the PL efficiency and interfaces in the InGaAsN/GaAs QWs do not deteriorate with increasing number of QWs. In an InGaAsN 7 QW structure, even after annealing at temperatures as high as 850 C, misfit dislocations were still not observed. This is contrary to the lattice relaxation behaviour of annealed InGaAs MQWs and is attributed to the impurity pinning of dislocations by nitrogen. (copyright 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH and Co. KGaA, Weinheim) (orig.)