Effects of interdiffusion on the Photoluminescence of ternary and quaternary semiconductor nanostructures interpreted

During epitaxial growth and processing, III-V nanostructures are likely to undergo several periods´ high temperature cycling which lead to interdiffusion of the elements involved. Recently unusual experimental Photoluminescence (PL) results of annealing of the important InGaAs/InP quantum wells have been reported, where the PL peak energy increases monotonically on annealing at higher temperatures while it moves through an inflexion at lower temperatures. An explanation of these strange PL observations remained unestablished. The paper will present a detailed study on the annealing and interdiffusion of InGaAs/InP QWs to find out the changes of the band offset ratios and their effects on the resultant PL peaks.