Temperature and Bi-concentration dependence of the bandgap and spin-orbit splitting in InGaBiAs/InP semiconductors for mid-infrared applications

Replacing small amounts of As with Bi in InGaBiAs/InP induces large decreases and increases in the bandgap, Eg, and spin-orbit splitting, ΔSO, respectively. The possibility of achieving ΔSO > Eg and a reduced temperature (T) dependence for Eg are significant for suppressing recombination losses and improving performance in mid-infrared photonic devices. We measure Eg(x, T) and ΔSO (x, T) in In0.53Ga0.47BixAs1−x/InP samples for 0 ≤ x ≤ 0.039 by various complementary optical spectroscopic techniques. While we find no clear evidence of a decreased dEg/dT (≈0.34 ± 0.06 meV/K in all samples) we find ΔSO > Eg for x > 3.3–4.3%. The predictions of a valence band anti-crossing model agree well with the measurements.