Systematic investigation into the influence of growth conditions on InAs/GaAs quantum dot properties

The influence of the conditions during growth of InAs/GaAs quantum-dot structures on GaAs(001) by molecular-beam epitaxy was investigated systematically with respect to achieving quantum-dot photoluminescence in the 1 eV range. The growth temperature, As flux, growth rate, InAs deposit, and growth interruption time before cap layer growth were varied. Photoluminescence spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy were used to study the optical and structural properties. Large InAs quantum dots with photoluminescence in the 1 eV range were obtained at a low growth rate of 0.0056 ML/s. Analyzing in particular the low-growth-rate regime, we found that an InAs deposition of at least 2.4 ML and a growth temperature of 500-510 °C were crucial to obtain large quantum dots with a high size uniformity. Composition analyses by transmission electron microscopy revealed a significantly higher In concentration in the quantum dots grown at low growth rate compared to high-growth -rate samples.