Optical and structural properties of In-rich InxGa1−xAs epitaxial layers on (100) InP for SWIR detectors

•Optical and structural investigation of In-rich InGaAs grown on (100) InP.•Effects of temperature and excitation density on the optical properties of InGaAs.•Good correlation between results provided by different characterization techniques.•Abnormal behavior of the luminescence keys has been observed. In-rich InxGa1−xAs epitaxial layers were grown on InP (100) substrates by a metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE) technique. The effect of Indium (In) composition on the crystalline quality and optical properties are investigated. High resolution X-ray diffraction (HR-XRD) measurement and Raman scattering spectrum are used to evaluate the crystalline quality, the residual strain and dislocation density property. The number of dislocations in the epitaxial layers is found to increase by increasing the Indium content in order to release the stresses due to the epitaxial clamping. Photoluminescence (PL) measurement is used to characterize the optical properties. At 10 K, PL measurements show that the InGaAs band gap redshifts with the indium content. Moreover, the asymmetry at the low-energy side of the PL peak has been attributed to the presence of localized excitons. In all samples, a blue shift of PL peaks is evidenced by increasing the excitation power density, which is in line with the presence of carrier’s localization and non-idealities in this system. Moreover, the temperature-dependence of the PL peak energy displays an unusual red-blue-red shift (S-shaped) behavior when raising the temperature. These observations can be related to the inhomogeneous distribution of indium which gives rise to the appearance of dislocations and other defects which serve as traps for charge carriers. Interestingly, those highly In-content InxGa1−xAs epitaxial layers show PL emission located between 1637 and 1811 nm (depending on In content) and thus might be suitable for in the design of novel heterostructure devices such as short wave infrared (SWIR) detectors.