Optical and structural properties of In/sub 0.53/Ga/sub 0.47/As/In/sub 0.52/Al/sub 0.48/As multiple quantum wells grown on vicinal (110) InP substrates by molecular beam epitaxy

We investigated the MBE growth and optical characteristics of In/sub 0.53/Ga/sub 0.47/As/In/sub 0.52/Al/sub 0.48/As MQWs on vicinal (110) InP substrates. The MQWs grown on the (110) substrates tilted towards [001~] indicate narrower excitonic linewidth in absorption spectra and stronger photoluminescence intensity than those of (001) MQWs. On the other hand, for the MQWs on the (110) tilted towards [001], we observed no excitonic absorption peaks and extremely-weak and broad PL spectra. The TED and TEM observations have clarified that these poor characteristics are due to structural fluctuation and atomic ordering in the MQWs. We also discuss a possible mechanism of the degradation.