The influence of InAs deposition thickness on the structural and optical properties of InAs/InAlAs quantum wires (QWR) superlattices (SLS) was studied. The transmission electron microscopy (TEM) results show that with increasing the InAs deposited thickness, the size uniformity and spatial ordering of InAs QWR SLS was greatly improved, but threading dislocations initiated from InAs nanowires for the sample with 6 monolayers (MLs) InAs deposition. In addition, the zig-zag features along the extending direc-tion and lateral interlink of InAs nanowires were also observed. The InAs nanowires, especially for the first period, were laterally compact. These structural features may result in easy tunneling and coupling of charge carriers between InAs nanowires and will hamper their device applications to some extent. Some suggestions are put forward for further improving the uniformity of the stack-ed InAs QWRs, and for suppressing the formation of the threading dislocations in InAs QWR SLS.
Yuanli WangHua CuiWen LeiYahong SuYonghai ChenJu WuZhanguo Wang
Under certain growth conditions for systems with a film/substrate lattice misfit, the deposited material is known to aggregate into island-like shapes. We have obtained an analytical expression of the total free energy, which consists of strain energy, surface energy and interfacial energy of a coherent island/substrate system, and the change of equilibrium aspect ratio versus the volume of the island and the misfit of lattices in the system, which provides a broad perspective on island behaviour. These then were used to study the equilibrium shapes of the system. The results show that in order to minimize the total free energy, a coherent island will have a particular height-to-width aspect ratio, called equilibrium aspect ratio, that is a function of the island volume and misfit. The aspect ratio is increased with increasing island volume at a fixed misfit, and with increasing misfit strain between the island and substrate at a fixed island volume. Moreover, the effect of misfit dislocation on the equilibrium shape of the island is also examined. The results obtained are in good agreement with experiment of observations and thus can serve as a basis for interpreting the experiments.
