Compensation effect and differential capacitance analysis of electronic energy band structure in relaxed InAs quantum dots

Abstract

The use of a differential capacitance technique for analyzing the effect of strain relaxation on the electronic energy band structure in relaxed InAs self-assembled quantum dots (QDs) is presented. Strain relaxation is shown to induce a deep defect state and compensate the ionized impurity in the bottom GaAs layer, leading to a double depletion width and a long emission time. An expression of capacitance at different frequency and voltage is derived for analyzing the experimental data. It has been shown that the relationship between the low-frequency and high-frequency capacitances can be well explained by a Schottky depletion model with a compensated concentration in the bottom GaAs layer. A simple expression is presented to account for the modulation of the free electrons in the top GaAs layer. This capacitance analysis shows a long low-energy tail for the electron ground state, suggesting not very uniform strain relaxation. The results of this study illustrate a carrier compensation effect of the defect state on the electronic energy band structure near the QDs. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3467938]