Growth kinetics effects on self-assembled InAs/InP quantum dots

A systematic manipulation of the morphology and the optical emission properties of metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy grown ensembles of InAs/InP quantum dots is demonstrated by changing the growth kinetics parameters. Under nonequilibrium conditions of a comparatively higher growth rate and low growth temperature, the quantum dots' density, their average size and hence the peak emission wavelength can be tuned by changing efficiency of the surface diffusion (determined by the growth temperature) relative to the growth flux. We further observe that the distribution of quantum dot heights, for samples grown under varying conditions, if normalized to the mean height, can be nearly collapsed onto a single Gaussian curve. (C) 2005 American Institute of Physics.