A detailed study of the impact of various growth conditions (ion bombardment, N flow and In content) upon defect formation in Ga(In)NP epilayers grown on GaP substrates by solid-source molecular beam epitaxy was performed. Reduced N ion bombardment during the growth was shown to significantly reduce formation of defects acting as competing recombination centres, such as a Ga interstitial defect and other unidentified defects revealed by optically detected magnetic resonance. Further, high N flow was found to be even more effective than the ion bombardment in introducing the defects. The incorporation of In by 5.1% was, on the other hand, found not to affect the introduction of defects. The results provided a useful insight into the formation mechanism of the defects that will hopefully shed light on a control of the defect introduction in the alloys by optimizing growth conditions.

Effect of Growth Conditions on Grown-In Defect Formation and Luminescence Efficiency in Ga(In)NP Epilayers Grown by Molecular-Beam Epitaxy. D.Dagnelund, I.A.Buyanova, W.M.Chen, A.Utsumi, Y.Furukawa, A.Wakahara, H.Yonezu: Physica Status Solidi C, 2008, 5[2], 460-3