Effective mass of holes in quaternary InGaAsP alloys lattice-matched to InP

Abstract Rapid growth of optical communications technology over the last decade is largely due to the development of InGaAsP/InP light sources and detectors whose operating wavelengths match the low-loss and low-dispersion windows of silica fibers. Proper design of such devices is, to a large extent, conditional upon the detailed knowledge of relevant material characteristics. In spite of intensive studies of InGaAsP quaternary alloy semiconductors prompted by their practical applications,1–4 there remain a number of important parameters for which only rough estimates are available. Such is the case of the heavy-hole effective mass, which is one of the least-known parameters even in the case of the binary InP.