Photoluminescence study of hydrogen passivation in InAs[sub 1-x]N[sub x]/InGaAs single-quantum well on InP.

It is well known that nitrogen incorporation into III–V compounds will degrade the quality of materials. In this letter, we show that the incorporation of atomic hydrogen into InAsN/InGaAs quantum wells can effectively passivate defects and lead to enhancement of photoluminescence intensity near the band edge. After hydrogenation, the change of the optical properties is quite different from that of the annealing with nitrogen treatment. For instance, the linewidth becomes wider after hydrogenation, while the linewidth is narrower after nitrogen annealing. Through a detailed study of the photoluminescence spectra, we show that the passivation of defect bonds is the main reason for the improved optical behavior for hydrogenation, while the interdiffusion is responsible for the change after nitrogen annealing. © 2002 American Institute of Physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]