Modulated beam epitaxial growth of high quality GaAs single quantum wells at low temperature

Abstract
High quality AlGaAs/GaAs quantum wells and low‐threshold current density lasers (2) have been successfully grown at low temperatures (500 °C) by a modulated beam epitaxy process in which the group III flux is held constant while the As flux is periodically shut off to produce a metal‐rich surface. The improved quality of these low‐temperature‐grown quantum structures is attributed to both a smoothing of the growth front and a reduction of excess As during the modulated beam epitaxy process. The high growth rates and less frequent shutter operation of this technique make it more practical than migration‐enhanced epitaxy or atomic layer epitaxy for low‐temperature growth.