Effect of thin GaAs tensile-strained layer on InAs quantum dots on InP (001) substrate grown by LP-MOVPE

Abstract The InAs quantum dots on thin tensile-strained GaAs layer on InP (001) substrate are grown by LP-MOVPE. Approximately 2 nm GaAs tensile-strained layer is first grown on InP substrate, then 2 monolayer (ML) InAs for sample A, 4 ML for sample B, 6 ML for sample C and 8 ML for sample D are deposited. An atomic force microscope (AFM) is used to study the behavior of the InAs quantum dots. For sample A, two types of InAs islands are observed. Strain-induced grooves appear on the surface. For the other three samples, the InAs islands arrange along two orthogonal directions and the island density decreases with an increase in the amount of InAs material. The density of sample B is as high as 1.9×10 10 cm −2 , the densities are 1.39×10 10 and 0 .79×10 10 cm −2 for samples C and D, respectively. Furthermore, the base shape changes for different samples. For samples A and B, the base shapes are round; for sample C, the base changes into ellipsis; but for sample D, the base changes into triangle. The base area increases with an increase in the deposition of InAs. We also investigate the PL spectrum of InAs QDs with GaAs and with it and find that the QDs quality is higher with GaAs layer.