Photoreflectance study on the effect of lattice defects in InP on (001) Si

The residual stress in epitaxial InP on (001) Si was investigated by photoreflectance spectroscopy. Depending on doping concentration, low-field and intermediate-field spectra were measured which were quantitatively analysed by a third-derivative approximation or by a multilayer model, respectively. In both cases, transitions only from the heavy-hole and the split-off valence subbands into the conduction band contributed to the spectra, while the light-hole to conduction-band transition was absent. In addition to the energy shift due to tensile strain caused by the different thermal expansion coefficients of InP and Si, a signal component originating from compressive strain in the InP was observed. This effect is attributed to the clustering of dislocations at twin defects. As a result, a model of the defect distribution in the heteroepitaxial InP layers was presented.