Proceedings Article | 4 March 2019
KEYWORDS: Silicon, Optoelectronic devices, Quantum cascade lasers, Electrons, Photodetectors, Gallium antimonide, Indium arsenide, Semiconductor lasers, Gallium indium arsenide antimonide phosphide, Quantum wells
Antimonide-based materials rely on the GaSb, InAs, AlSb, InSb binary compounds and their quaternary or pentanary alloys (AlGaAsSb, GaInAsSb, AlGaInAsSb,.. ). This technology exhibits several distinctive properties as compared to other semiconductors: type-I to type-III band alignments, giant band offsets, low effective masses of electrons and holes, direct bandgaps between 0.15 and 1.7 eV [1].
Conventional laser diodes (LDs) rely essentially on GaInAsSb type-I quantum wells (QWs) confined by AlGa(In)AsSb barrier layers. Low threshold currents and high T0 have been demonstrated between 1.5 and 3.4 µm [2]. The AlGaInAsSb pentanary barrier is needed to extend the wavelength beyond 3 µm while keeping a type-I band alignment [3] even though it makes the epitaxial growth complex. Single mode operation has been achieved with both DFB lasers [4-6] and VCSELs [7, 8] using the same active zone. At longer wavelength, interband cascade lasers (ICLs) based on GaInSb/InAs type-II p-n junctions stacked in series exhibit room temperature cw emission between 3.5 and 5 µm, including single mode operation of DFB lasers [9]. At still longer wavelength InAs/AlSb quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) benefit from the low InAs effective mass and giant conduction band offset. High performance have been demonstrated all the way from 2.6 µm up to 25 µm, particularly at long wavelength which is an asset of this technology [10].
Type-II InAs/GaSb superlattices (T2SLs), play an increasing role in the field of high performance IR photodetection [11]. The staggered type-II, i.e. type-III, alignment allows controlling the cut-off wavelength from the short- to the long-IR range simply by changing the individual layer thickness. This technology is now competing against established HgCdTe IR systems, particularly at long wavelength. Still, these GaSb-rich T2SLs suffer from GaSb native defects which limits their dark current above theoretical expectations [12]. This opened the way to the implementation of so-called "Ga-free" InAs/InAsSb T2SLs which exhibit improved carrier lifetimes [13]. The photodetector performance however still lag behind theory and work remains to be done [14]. It is noticeable that the Sb technology is very versatile. The whole NIR to LWIR wavelength range can be covered and multi-color photodetection systems can be achieved by engineering at will superlattices based on GaSb, InAs, AlSb and any combination of them [15]. Moreover, the growth of these structures in production systems has already been demonstrated [16, 17] opening the way to commercialization.
On another ground, the evolution toward smart, integrated, sensors requires integrating III-V optoelectronic devices with Si-based platforms. The epitaxial growth of III-V compounds on Si has thus been the focus of renewed attention for about a decade now. We have shown that the Si substrate preparation and the III-Sb nucleation on Si are crucial steps [18, 19]. This allowed us demonstrating a variety of epitaxially integrated optoelectronic devices such as laser diodes [20, 21], photodetectors [22] and the first ever QCL grown on Si [23].
In this presentation we review the recent results obtained on the integration of antimonide-based optoelectronic devices epitaxially grown on Si substrates. We will show that this technology is very attractive for future III-V on Si integration, and we will discuss future integration schemes.
Part of the work performed at Univ. Montpellier has been supported by the French program on “Investment for the Future” (EquipEx EXTRA, ANR-11-EQPX-0016), research agency (ANR) and defense agency (DGA) and by the European Union (FP6, FP7, FEDER, H2020).
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