A study was made of intermixing, in quantum-well structures, by using repetitive thermal annealing and photoluminescence methods. It was found that there was an improvement in the optical quality of the samples upon annealing at about 500C, where macroscopic intermixing was not observed. The interdiffusion was found to be Fick-like, with no dependence upon alloy composition or strain. An activation energy of 2.3eV was deduced for the interdiffusion over a temperature range of 250K, and for 4 decades of the interdiffusion coefficient.

M.K.Chai, S.F.Wee, K.P.Homewood, W.P.Gillin, T.Cloitre, R.L.Aulombard: Applied Physics Letters, 1996, 69[11], 1579-81