Structural and optical characterization of InP/GalnP islands grown by solid-source MBE

We report on the growth of InP/GalnP islands on GaAs substrates by solidsource molecular beam epitaxy. It is shown by reflection high energy electron diffraction and atomic force microscopy that a rapid change from a twodimensional to a three-dimensional growth mode occurs at about nominally 1.5 monolayers (MLs) InP. Transmission electron microscopy measurements demonstrate the coherent incorporation of InP islands in an GalnP matrix for nominally 2.5 MLs InP. The energy of the InP photoluminescence (PL) shifts to lower energies (100 meV) when the growth interruption time between the island and cap layer growth is increased from 1 to 300 s in case of nominally 3 MLs InP. Simultaneously, an increase of the PL linewidth is observed from 30 to 60 meV. Room temperature photoreflectance measurements on samples with various InP thickness have been performed. Compared to PL measurements, an additional feature in the photoreflectance spectra is observed for samples with more than 7 MLs InP, which is attributed to a transition between excited electron and hole states of the islands.