The dependence of the interband exciton transitions on the annealing temperature and time in In0.53Ga0.47As/InP multiple quantum wells with a SiNx capping layer

Photoluminescence (PL) measurements have been performed to investigate the compositional intermixing of In0.53Ga0.47As/InP multiple quantum wells (MQWs) grown by using chemical beam epitaxy. A SiNx capping layer together with a thermal annealing process was introduced to create the energy shift of the exciton transition from the first electronic subband to the first heavy hole (E1-HH1) in the In0.53Ga0.47As/InP MQWs. The blue shift of the (E1-HH1) transition is attributed to the interdiffusion of the P in the InP barrier and the As in the In0.53Ga0.47As quantum well. These results indicate that the value of the (E1-HH1) shift can be effectively adjusted by the annealing temperature and the annealing time in the energy range of 87 meV and that the intermixing method of In0.53Ga0.47As/InP MQWs by using a SiNx capping layer together with a annealing process holds promise for practical applications in the intergrated photonic devices.