Recent advances in nonsilica fiber technology have prompted the development of suitable materials for devices operating beyond 155 mu m The III-V ternaries and quaternaries (AlGaIn)(AsSb) lattice matched to GaSb seem to be the obvious choice and have turned out to be promising candidates for high speed electronic and long wavelength photonic devices Consequently, there has been tremendous upthrust in research activities of GaSb-based systems As a matter of fact, this compound has proved to be an interesting material for both basic and applied research At present, GaSb technology is in its infancy and considerable research has to be carried out before it can be employed for large scale device fabrication This article presents an up to date comprehensive account of research carried out hitherto It explores in detail the material aspects of GaSb starting from crystal growth in bulk and epitaxial form, post growth material processing to device feasibility An overview of the lattice, electronic, transport, optical and device related properties is presented Some of the current areas of research and development have been critically reviewed and their significance for both understanding the basic physics as well as for device applications are addressed These include the role of defects and impurities on the structural, optical and electrical properties of the material, various techniques employed for surface and bulk defect passivation and their effect on the device characteristics, development of novel device structures, etc Several avenues where further work is required in order to upgrade this III-V compound for optoelectronic devices are listed It is concluded that the present day knowledge in this material system is sufficient to understand the basic properties and what should be more vigorously pursued is their implementation for device fabrication (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics

The physics and technology of gallium antimonide: An emerging optoelectronic material

An advanced visible/infrared dual-band photodetector with high-resolution imaging at room temperature is proposed and demonstrated for intelligent identification based on the 2D GaSe/GaSb vertical heterostructure. It resolves the challenges of producing large-scale 2D growth, achieving fast response speed, outstanding detectivity, and lower manufacture cost, which are the main obstacles for industrialization of 2D-materials-based photodetection.

Arrayed Van Der Waals Broadband Detectors for Dual-Band Detection

The physical properties of GaSb are briefly presented and the device implications reviewed. GaSb is a direct gap semiconductor (0.72 eV) capable of being doped either p or n type with good mobilities and it has significant electro-optical potential in the near IR range. As a substrate, or active layer, GaSb can be employed in conjunction with many semiconductors such as (AlGa)Sb or In(AsSb) and has interesting heterojunction potential for detectors and lasers and quantum well structures.

Gallium antimonide device related properties

High-quality homo- and hetero-epitaxial GaSb has been grown from TMGa and TMSb using atmospheric pressure metal-organic vapour-phase epitaxy (MOVPE). Unintentionally doped material was p-type. At 295 K it had a carrier concentration of around 3.0*1016 cm-3 and a corresponding Hall mobility in the range of 670 to 1000 cm2 V-1 s-1. Growth parameters were carefully correlated with surface morphology, electrical quality and photoluminescence data to establish the growth window for this material.

http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0268-1242/3/4/007/pdf

Growth of GaSb by MOVPE

The temperature dependence of photoluminescence from the high‐quality unintentionally doped GaSb layers grown by liquid‐phase epitaxy has been studied. The epitaxial layers grown at temperatures above 590 °C, from the Ga‐ or Sb‐rich solutions, reproducibly have a low‐carrier concentration of 6–8×1015 cm−3 and exhibit p‐type conduction. But it gives n type as grown from the Ga‐rich solution at 360 °C. For the samples grown from the Ga‐rich solutions, the 16 K photoluminescence spectrum is dominated by the partially resolved lines related to the transitions of excitons bound to donors and neutral acceptors. The acceptor‐related band (777.8 meV) which is always presented in the GaSb material due to the native lattice defects has been much reduced as compared to the exciton‐related lines. Especially for the n‐type samples grown at low temperatures (360 °C), the ratio of the emission intensity from the exciton‐related lines to that from the acceptor‐related band is 10. For the samples grown from the Sb‐rich so...

Photoluminescence of high-quality GaSb grown from Ga- and Sb-rich solutions by liquid-phase epitaxy

Unintentionally doped gallium antimonide has been grown by molecular‐beam epitaxy on gallium arsenide and gallium antimonide. Substrate temperatures in the range 480 to 620 °C and antimony to gallium flux ratios from 0.65 : 1 to 6.5 : 1 have been investigated. The deposition conditions have been related to growth morphology and to the electrical and optical properties of the epitaxial films. A strong correlation has been found between the quality of the layers and the degree of excess antimony flux; the best material in terms of both optical and electrical properties was obtained with the minimum antimony stable growth at a particular substrate temperature. All the material exhibited residual p‐type behavior. The lowest hole concentration achieved was 7.8×1015 cm−3 with a corresponding room‐temperature mobility of 950 cm2/V s. The narrowest PL (photoluminescence) features observed were peaks associated with bound exciton transitions with half‐widths of 2–3 meV.

M. Lee

Papers

A photoluminescence and Hall‐effect study of GaSb grown by molecular‐beam epitaxy

Spectroscopic studies of shallow defects in MBE GaSb

MBE growth of BaF2/(Ga, In)(As, Sb) structures