surface science

ELSEVIER Applied Surface Science 117/l 18 (1997) 771-775

Characterization of AlGaAs/GaAs vertical-cavity

surface-emitting laser diode grown on Si substrate by MOCVD
Takashi Egawa a,*, Yoshihiko Murata b, Takashi Jimbo a, Masayoshi Umeno b
a Research Center for Micro-Structure Devices, Nagoya Institute of Technology, Gokiso-cho, Showa-ku, Nagoya 466, Japan
b Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Nagoya Institute of Technology, Gokiso-cho, Showa-ku, Nagoya 466, Japan

Abstract

An AlGaAs/GaAs multi-quantum well vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser diode (VCSELD) has been grown on a Si
substrate using metalorganic chemical vapor deposition. The VCSELD structure grown on a Si substrate consists of ten
quantum well active layers and a 23-pairs of AIAs/Al,,,Gac,, As distributed Bragg reflector (DBR). The VCSELD on a Si
substrate exhibited a threshold current of 82 mA and a threshold current density of 4.2 kA/cm* under continuous-wave (cw)
condition at 1.50 K. Cross-sectional scanning electron microscopy observation showed quasi-periodic zigzag roughness and
nonuniformity in the DBR structure. Auger-electron spectroscopy also showed compositional transitions at the heterointer-
faces of DBR. A low reflectivity of the DBR on Si substrate is caused by the degraded heterointerfaces, which prevent 300
K cw operation for the VCSELD grown on Si.

Keywords: Vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser; Distributed Bragg reflector; GaAs/Si; Heterointerface; Roughness; Interdiffusion

1. Introduction cal or electronic devices. However, only a few

demonstrations have been reported on VCSELD
Growth and fabrication of III-V optical devices grown on Si under the pulsed operation at 300 K
on Si substrates are very promising for the realiza- [3,4]. We demonstrated 300 K pulsed operation for
tion of optoelectronic integrated circuits (OEIC’s) the AlGaAs/GaAs single quantum well VCSELD
[ 1,2]. In particular, the integration of vertical-cavity on Si with AlAs/GaAs distributed Bragg reflector
surface-emitting laser diodes (VCSELD’S) on Si has (DBR) [41.
significant advantages over edge-emitting lateral- Heteroepitaxial growth of GaAs on Si involves a
cavity laser diodes, such as the potential for wafer high density of dislocation (> lo6 cm-*) and a
scale testing, high-density two-dimensional array large residual tensile stress ( _ lo9 dyn/cm*), which
fabrication, chip-to-chip optical interconnection, ul- result from the 4.1% lattice mismatch and 250%
trafast parallel optical information processing and the difference in thermal expansion coefficients between
possibility of monolithic integration with other opti- GaAs and Si. In addition to this incompatibility of
the material properties, the GaAs/Si exhibits a rough
surface morphology [5,6]. The rough surface mor-
* Corresponding author. Tel.: + 81-52-7355544; fax: + Sl-52- phology is thought to affect the structure and reflec-
7355546: e-mail: egawa@mothra.elcom.nitech.ac.jp. tivity of the DBR grown subsequently on this rough

0169-4332/97/$17.00 Copyright 0 1997 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

F’IZ SO169-4332(97)00099-S
772 T. Egawa et al./Applied Su$ace Science 117/118 (1997) 771-775

GaAs/Si. The high density of dislocations and the 2.Experimental

large stress cause the failure of reliable and stable
lasing operation due to growth of dark-line defects An AlGaAs/GaAs VCSELD structure was grown
[7]. Continuous-wave (cw) operation could not be on an n+-Si substrate oriented 2” off (100) toward
achieved even at low temperature because of poor [I lo] using metalorganic chemical vapor deposition
crystallinity and low reflectivity of AlAs/GaAs (MOCVD) at atmospheric pressure. The VCSELD
DBR. Enhancement of the optical gain and the re- structure was grown on Si substrate at 750°C by the
flectivity of DBR is important for cw operation of conventional two-step growth technique. Fig. 1 shows
VCSELD on Si, because the mirror loss of the a schematic cross-sectional structure of the VCSELD
VCSELD is larger than that of the conventional grown on Si substrate. The laser structure consists of
edge-emitting laser diode. To achieve room-tempera- a 2.1 pm thick thermal-cycle . annealed n+-GaAs
ture cw operation with low threshold current, the buffer layer, a 23-pairs of n+-AlAs/n+-Al, ,Ga,.,As
DBR with high reflectivity of 99% is required. In the (71 nm/60 nm) quarter-wave multi-layer DBR, a
GaAs active layer, the use of the AIAs/AlO,,Ga,,As 0.29 pm thick n-Al,,Ga,,,As lower cladding layer,
DBR instead of the AlAs/GaAs DBR reduces the a 51 nm thick undoped Al,,Ga,,As lower confining
absorption loss of the n+-GaAs layers in the DBR, layer, ten undoped 9 nm thick GaAs MQW active
which results in high reflectivity of the DBR on Si. It layers separated by 5.5 nm thick undoped
is thus important to study the structure of the DBR Al,,Ga,,, As barrier layers, a 51 nm thick undoped
on Si substrate. In this study, we show that quasi- Al,,Ga,,,As upper confining layer, a 0.22 ,um thick
periodic zigzag roughness, nonuniformity of thick- p-Al,,Ga,,,As upper cladding layer, and a 34 nm
ness and compositional transitions are observed in thick pf-GaAs contact layer. After the growth, the
the DBR on Si substrate. We demonstrate 150 K cw laser device was fabricated as follows: a 0.1 pm
operation of AlGaAs/GaAs multi-quantum well thick SiO, insulating layer was deposited on the
(MQW) ~~SELD on Si substrate with 23-pair of p+-GaAs contact layer and 50 pm diameter contact
AlAs/Al,,Ga,, As DBR. This degraded DBR het- windows were opened by wet chemical etching of
erointerface results in difficulties in obtaining high SiO,. Next, 50 nm thick Ti/60 nm thick Au were
reflectivity and room-temperature cw operation for evaporated on the pf-GaAs layer as a p-side elec-
the VCSELD on Si substrate. trode except for the 20 pm diameter area at the

Au Emission

MQW

active layer
Alo.sGao TAS,5.5 nm

;I
Fig. 1. Schematic cross-sectional structure of AlGaAs/GaAs MQW VCSELD grown on Si substrate.
 T. Egawa et al./Applied Surface Science 117/118 (1997) 771-775 713

center of the 50 pm diameter contact window. A 70

nm thick semi-transparent Au was then evaporated
on the p-side surface. A 50 nm thick AuSb/lSO nm
thick Au was used for the n-side electrode on the
n+-Si substrate. The devices were mounted junction
up on a sample holder and tested. In this VCSELD
on Si, the light output was measured by detecting the
emitted light through the 20 pm diameter semi-
transparent Au.
We have also grown 20-pairs of quarter-wave
nf-AlAs/n+-GaAs (71 nm/59 nm) DBR on Si. In
order to determine the sharpness of compositional
gradients at the DBR heterointerfaces, the composi-
tional profile of the AlAs/GaAs DBR grown on Si
was measured by Auger electron spectroscopy (AES).
For comparison, a similar structure of the VCSELD
was grown on (100) GaAs substrate. The cross-sec-
tional structure of the AlAs/GaAs DBR was ob-
served by scanning electron microscopy (SEMI. The
compositional structure was profiled by measuring
the Ga-Auger peak (1070 eV>, As-Auger peak (1228
eV> and Al-Auger peak (1390 eV> intensities by
sputtering with a 5-keV Ar-ion beam.

Fig. 2. Cross-sectional SEM micrographs, obtained with backscat-

tered electrons, of the VCSELD with the AIAs/GaAs DBR grown
3. Results and discussion on (a) GaAs and (b) Si substrates.

Cross-sectional SEM micrographs, obtained with

backscattered electrons, of the AlAs/GaAs DBR
structures on GaAs and Si substrates are shown in
Fig. 2a and b, respectively. The AlAs/GaAs DBR
grown on GaAs substrate shows the interfacial
sharpness with uniform and smooth heterointerfaces.
As shown in Fig. 2b, however, the AlAs/GaAs
DBR on Si substrate exhibits quasi-periodic zigzag
roughness and nonuniformity in the AlAs and GaAs
layers. The thickness of AlAs layers is from 65 to 75
nm and that of GaAs layers is from 57 to 67 nm. The
surface and interfacial roughnesses are probably due
to the three-dimensional growth at the initial growth
stage [8,9] and defects such as the threading disloca-
tions and the stacking faults [6]. The zigzag rough-
ness and the interfacial roughness introduce diffrac-
tion and scattering loss, and reduce the reflectivity of
the DBR. The quality of the active layer grown
subsequently on the rough DBR may also be de-
graded.
In order to determine the sharpness of composi-
tional gradients at the AlAs/GaAs heterointerfaces,
the compositional profile of the AlAs/GaAs DBR
was measured by AES. Fig. 3a and b show the ratios
of the Auger signals of Ga/As and Al/As as a
function of depth for the AlAs/GaAs DBRs grown
on GaAs and Si substrates, respectively. The sharp
square profiles were obtained in the AlAs/GaAs
DBR grown on GaAs substrate. In the case of the
sample grown on Si, however, the compositional
transitions were seen at the AlAs/GaAs heterointer-
faces. The interface width between the AlAs and
GaAs layers was defined as the distance between
two points wherein the investigated Al peak height
changed from 90 to 10% of its maximum. The
interface widths were found to be about 4.6 nm for
the AlAs/GaAs DBR on GaAs, and from 13.2 to
18.9 nm for that on Si substrate. Thus, the apparent
interdiffusion across the AlAs/GaAs heterointer-
faces has been observed in the AlAs/GaAs DBR on
714 T. Egawa et al./Applied Surface Science 117/118 (1997) 771-775

Si substrate. This apparent interdiffusion is probably 20 1

100 K, CW
caused by two reasons. One is due to the inter-facial
roughness at the AlAs/GaAs heterointerfaces as Ia=73mA

shown in Fig. 2b. The other is due to the high (Jti = 3.7 kA/cm*)

q,, = 0.8 %
density of defects ( > lo7 cm-*) and the large stress
(N 10’ dyn/cm*), which result from the differences
of lattice constants and thermal expansion coeffi-
t
cients between GaAs and Si. The Al-Ga interdiffu-
sion [lo] is thought to be enhanced by the high
density of defects and the large stress in the
AlAs/GaAs DBR on Si.
The measured peak reflectivity of the 23-pairs of
AlAs/Al,,Ga,,As DBR on Si was 98.6% at 840
nm. Although a little increase of reflectivity was
1 820 840 860
observed in comparison with that of the 20-pairs of
AlAs/GaAs DBR on Si [4], the reflectivity of 98.6%
still remains to be low probably due to the zigzag 0
40 60
Current (mA)

Fig. 4. Cw L-Z characteristic and emission spectrum of

_I
AlGaAs/GaAs MQW VCSELD on Si substrate at 100 K.
(a) on GaAs substrate

interfacial roughness and the Al-Ga interdiffusion in

the DBR on Si substrate as shown above. The top
mirror had the reflectivity of 93.6% and transparency
of 0.6% for the semi-transparent Au.
Fig. 4 shows the light-current (L-Z) characteris-
tic and emission spectrum of the VCSELD at 100 K
in cw operation. The VCSELD on Si exhibited the
0' I
0 200 400 600 800 threshold current (I,,) of 73 mA, the threshold cur-
Depth (nm) rent density (Jt,> of 3.7 kA/cm2, and the external
31
differential quantum efficiency (~~1 of 0.8%. The qd
I
of VCSELD is lower than the hd of 28% for the

I (b) on Si substrate
I
edge-emitting lasers on Si. This is thought to be
caused by the absorption in the semi-transparent Au
and the interfacial roughness of DBR. The VCSELD
on Si showed the peak wavelength of 834.4 nm with
the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 39.5 nm
at 0.96 X Z,, and 844 nm with the FWHM of 2.2 nm
at 1.2 X Z,,. The VCSELD on Si also showed the
pulsed It,, of 132.6 mA (Jth = 6.7 kA/cm*) at 300
K. We have confirmed the cw operation up to 150 K
400 600 800
for the VCSELD on Si. The VCSELD on Si exhib-
Depth (nm) ited the cw Z, of 82 mA (.Zth = 4.2 kA/cm*) at 150
Fig. 3. Auger signals of Ga/As and Al/As as a function of depth
K. The cw operation was thought to be achieved by
for the AlAs/GaAs DBRs grown on (a) GaAs and (b) Si sub- the use of the AlAs/AlGaAs DBR and MQW struc-
strates. ture.
 T. Egawa et al./Applied Surface Science 117/118 (1997) 771-775 115

4. Summary tially supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Re-

search (No. 06650053) from The Ministry of Educa-
We have grown the VCSELD with the AlAs/Al- tion, Science, Sports and Culture, Japan.
GaAs DBR on Si substrate by MOCVD, and charac-
terized the DBR heterointerfaces using cross-sec-
tional SEM and Auger-electron spectroscopy. We References
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Acknowledgements
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