Abstract

The intermixing of Al and Ga at temperatures as low as 500°G was first demonstrated by Laidig et al. using diffusion of Zn into thin GaAs-AIAs superlattices.¹ The low temperature demonstrated in this work is contrasted sharply with the high temperatures (800–1000°C) necessary for Ga-Ai interdiffusion by ordinary thermal annealing.^2-6 Disordering of multilayered structures by Zn diffusion has also been observed with GaAs-AIGaAs,^5-7 GaP-GaAsP,⁸ GaAs-lnGaAs,⁹ and InGaAs-lnA-lAs.¹⁰ In addition to Zn, by the amphoteric dop-ants Si^11,12 and Ge¹², the donor S¹³, the impurity atoms F¹⁴ and Cu¹⁵, and the constituent atoms As¹⁴ have all been reported to produce disordering when diffused through multilayers of GaAs/AI-GaAs. Ion implantation of a wide variety of atomic species, such as Si;^16–19 Zn,^17,18 S,¹⁸ Cu,¹⁵ Al,¹⁸ As,^14,20 Ga,²¹ F,¹⁴ and an inert ion Kr,¹⁸ followed by heat treatment has also been successful in smearing out quantum well(s). Impurity-induced disordering can also be achieved by proper doping of the multilayer structures during growth. Enhanced interdiffusion has been studied extensively using Si^22–25 doping in the layers.

© 1986 Optical Society of America