Nitrogen incorporation in GaNAs layers grown by molecular beam epitaxy

GaNAs/GaAs quantum wells with high N concentrations, grown by molecular beam epitaxy, have been investigated by secondary-ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), high resolution x-ray diffraction (XRD), and photoluminescence (PL) measurements. The substitutional N concentration in an 18 nm thick strained GaNAs layer varies from 1.4% to 5.9% when the growth rate is reduced from 1 to 0.2 mu m/h. By further reducing the growth rate, more N can be incorporated but relaxation occurs. Both the total N concentration, deduced from SIMS measurements, and the substitutional N concentration, deduced from XRD measurements, increase with reduced growth rate. By comparing the SIMS and XRD results, we found that a large amount of N was not in substitutional position when the substitutional N concentration is high (> 4%). The experimental results also show that there is no detectable change of total and substitutional N concentrations, within the instrument resolutions, after rapid thermal annealing at 700 degrees C for 30 s. However, PL measurements show a strong blueshift of the emission wavelength after annealing and the PL intensity increases by more than one order of magnitude. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.