Beryllium diffusion across GaAs/(Al,Ga)As heterojunctions and GaAs/AlAs superlattices during MBE growth

Beryllium diffusion during MBE growth of (Al, Ga)As layers, (Al, Ga)As/GaAs heterojunctions and GaAs/AlAs superlattices has been studied by electrochemical C-V and secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) concentration profiling, in conjunction with transmission electron microscopy. Diffusion times were comparatively short since they were limited to part of the growth sequence, so non-equilibrium effects had a significant influence. The results are consistent with an interstitial-substitutional mechanism in which lattice site incorporation becomes more difficult with increasing band gap enthalpy. Incorporation involves a kick-out reaction which leads to the observed disordering of the superlattices.     

Millimeter and submillimeter detection using Ga1?xAlxAs/GaAs heterostructures

We have shown that a Ga_1–xAl_xAs/GaAs heterostructure can be used as a sensitive tunable detector of mm-wave/sub-mm-wave radiation. The mechanism for detection requires the application of a magnetic field varying from approximately 0.2T at 94GHz (3.2mm wavelength) to 6.2T at 2500GHz (119m wavelength). The responsivity and N.E.P. at 3.2mm have been roughly estimated at 200V/W and 5×10^–11W/Hz respectively. The speed of such a detector could be several orders of magnitude greater than comparable InSb detectors.