Photoreflectance spectroscopy of semiconductor structures at hydrostatic pressure: A comparison of GaInAs/GaAs and GaInNAs/GaAs single quantum wells

The pressure dependence of optical transitions in Ga0.64In0.36As/GaAs and Ga0.64In0.36N0.01As0.99/GaAs single quantum well (SQW) structures were studied in photoreflectance (PR) spectroscopy. In order to apply high hydrostatic pressure, up to 11 kbar, the liquid-filled clamp-pressure cell with a sapphire window for optical access has been adopted in the PR set-up with the so called ‘bright configuration’. It has been found that the linear hydrostatic pressure coefficient for the ground state transition are equal to 8.6 and 7.3 meV/kbar for the GaInAs/GaAs and GaInNAs/GaAs SQWs, respectively. This result shows that the incorporation of only 1% of N atoms into GaInAs/GaAs leads to 15% decrease in the pressure coefficient. In addition, a non-linearity in the pressure dependence of the ground state transition has been resolved for the GaInNAs/GaAs SQW.