Impact of unintentional Sb in the tensile InAs layer of strain-balanced type-II InAs/InAsSb superlattices grown on GaSb by molecular beam epitaxy

The impact of unintentional incorporation of Sb in the tensile InAs layer of type-II strain-balanced InAs/InAsSb superlattices is investigated. Several coherently strained midwave and longwave superlattices are grown on (100) GaSb substrates by molecular beam epitaxy and examined using x-ray diffraction and temperature-dependent photoluminescence spectroscopy. The zero-order diffraction angle provides the average Sb mole fraction of the strain-balanced superlattice period. Analysis of the higher order diffraction angles, along with the individual layer growth times and strain, provides the InAs and InAsSb layer thicknesses. Analysis of the photoluminescence measurements provides the ground-state bandgap of the superlattice, which along with simulations of the ground-state energies of the electrons and holes using a Kronig–Penney model, specify how the Sb is distributed between the tensile and compressive layers of the period and ultimately the quantity of unintentional Sb in the InAs layer. The unintentional Sb mole fractions observed in the tensile InAs layers are 1.9% for midwave and 1.2% for longwave. When compared to superlattices with the same period and no Sb in the tensile layer, the presence of unintentional Sb blue-shifts the 77 K temperature cutoff wavelength from 6.3 to 5.3 μm for midwave and from 18.8 to 12.0 μm for longwave.