Abstract
The effects of the thermal annealing induced diffusion on the photoluminescence (PL) of a
Ga
As
∕
Ga
In
As
∕
Ga
As
∕
Ga
In
N
As
∕
Ga
As
quantum well (QW) structure grown by solid source molecular beam epitaxy are studied. The PL experimental results in conjunction with the numerical quantum-mechanical modeling that predicts the changes in the QW confining potential with group-III atomic diffusion, have been used to obtain the values for diffusion coefficient. The activation energies of
Ga
In
As
∕
Ga
As
QW
(
E
D
,
GIA
)
were found to be between
0.49
to
0.51
eV
, while that of
Ga
In
N
As
∕
Ga
As
QW
(
E
D
,
GINA
)
showed comparable values of between 0.6 to a
0.67
eV
, as annealing time increases from
10
to
30
s
. The
E
D
,
GIA
and
E
D
,
GINA
values are attributed to the same interstitial diffusion mechanism.