Some aspects on thermodynamic properties, phase diagram and alloy formation in the ternary system BAs–GaAs—Part II: BGaAs alloy formation

We present a detailed analysis of the thermodynamics of the BGaAs alloy formation taking into account the question of boron solubility and Gibbs free energy change. We also predict a Gibbs free energy change for the gas phase formation of BAs to be compared to for GaAs. We show that the experimental boron solubility is actually an open question both theoretically and experimentally, while the maximum concentration obtained up to date is reaching 6–7%. It thus follows that despite the low boron solubility, the Gibbs free energy change for the alloy formation is dominated by the chemical term over the mixing energy change. We could deduce order of magnitude for the ratio of the boron partial pressure and that of gallium. P_B could be estimated as being always much lower than P_Ga; it is shown that the alloy content is probably controlled by the Ga equilibrium partial pressure.     

Clustering effects in optical properties of BGaAs/GaAs epilayers

We report on the further investigation of the effect of boron incorporation on GaAs grown at 580 °C temperature on GaAs (0 0 1) substrate by metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). High-resolution X-ray diffraction (HRXRD) has been used to determine the lattice mismatch and to estimate the boron concentration. Temperature-dependent photoluminescence has been carried out to investigate B_xGa_1−xAs/GaAs epilayers with varied boron composition (x=1.64% and 3.04%). Low temperature (10 K) PL study has shown an asymmetric and broad PL band around 1.3 eV of the emission energies with a decrease of the PL intensity with increasing boron composition. The evolution of the emission energies with temperature can be described by Varshni law for the high temperature range (T?120 and 80 K) for boron composition x=1.64% and 3.04%, respectively, while a relative discrepancy has been found to occur at low temperature. Moreover, depending on the temperature range, the PL intensity quenching is found to be thermally ensured by three activation energies. These results are attributed to the localized states induced by the non-uniform insertion of boron and the clustering of the boron atom in BGaAs bulk.