Impurity trapping, interface structure, and luminescence of GaAs quantum wells grown by molecular beam epitaxy

A correlation has been demonstrated between impurity trapping and the interface structure in GaAs quantum well (QW) superlattices and single quantum well structures grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) on (100) GaAs. Using low-temperature cathodoluminescence, photoluminescence, and transmission electron miscroscopy, we have shown that interface roughness in QW superlattices is related to trapped impurities at interfaces. We have observed that impurities originate from either the substrate or from the GaAlAs MBE layers. A new getter smoothing effect associated with QW structures is shown to produce efficient impurity trapping and yield higher quality GaAs QW with atomically smooth interfaces.