Electronic properties of metamorphic GaSbBi films on GaAs

TL;DR

This study investigates the electronic, structural, and optical properties of GaSbBi films grown on GaAs, revealing how Bi incorporation affects their characteristics and potential for optoelectronic applications.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the effects of Bi alloying on GaSb films, including relaxation, surface morphology, and electrical properties, with detailed analysis of Bi's role.

Findings

GaSbBi films are fully relaxed with smooth morphology.

Bi alloying causes band gap shrinkage observed in photoluminescence.

Hole concentration decreases with increasing Bi, while mobility remains constant.

Abstract

We report on the electronic, structural, and optical properties of epitaxial GaSbBi films with varying Bi-concentration (up to 7%Bi) grown on semi-insulating GaAs(100) substrates. The 1 $\mu$m thick GaSbBi epilayers exhibit fully relaxed narrow X-ray diffraction peaks and smooth surface morphology comparable to that of high-quality GaSb epilayers on GaAs. Low temperature photoluminescence spectra exhibit band gap shrinkage consistent with Bi alloying. Electrical Hall measurements indicate reduction of hole concentration and no change in the hole mobilities with increasing Bi content for the nominally undoped GaSbBi alloy. The residual hole concentration reduces from $10^{18} cm^{-3}$ level for a reference GaSb sample, to low $10^{17} cm^{-3}$ level with increasing Bi content. Hole mobility values of around $300 cm^{2}/Vs$ are observed independent of the Bi content. These dependencies are attributed to the Bi surfactant effect and Bi-induced defect formation.