High-Density Plasma Enhanced Quantum Well Intermixing in InGaAs/InGaAsP Structure Using Argon Plasma

Photoluminescence was used to study the band-gap shift of Ar plasma induced quantum well intermixing in InGaAs/InGaAsP laser structure. Ar exposure for 5 min and subsequent annealing resulted in maximum blue shift of 61.4 meV. This is the first time to use the high-density plasma enhanced intermixing technique developed in inductively coupled plasma machine to demonstrate the result of bandgap blue-shift with the improvement of crystalline quality as compared to plasma generated from pure RF power. This technique provides a promising approach of bandgap tuning for photonic integrated circuits, which demand high crystalline quality. 11 refs.