Room temperature photomodulated reflectance (PR), Photoluminescence (PL) and double crystal x-ray diffraction (DCXRD) measurements have been performed on a series of tensilely strained InxGa1-xAs (0.316 ≤ x ≤ 0.533) multiple quantum well (QW) structures, with In0.80Ga0.20As0.43P0.57 barriers. The DCXRD measurements provided accurate information on composition, strain and layer thickness, while PR was used to determine the energies of the full manifold of allowed and forbidden critical point interband QW transitions. A three-band effective mass formalism was used to model the QW transitions to derive structural information on each sample. The energies of the ground-state QW transitions, H11 and L11, were found to increase with tensile strain, becoming degenerate near 0.36% tensile strain. Room temperature PR and conventional reflectance (R) measurement have been performed on two I.R. emitting InGaAs/GaAs/A1As vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) structures. The R measurements were modelled using a transfer matrix formalism to determine errors in the growth fluxes. A new PR lineshape model has been developed based on energy dependent Seraphin coefficients, to describe the cavity mode interaction with a confined-state QW transition. The model is demonstrated on a set of PR spectra, and used in a novel way to derive the Deltaepsilon2 spectrum of the QW layers directly. The results are compared with those taken of the QW layers directly after removing the top Bragg stack reflector. Whilst the QW layers in one sample were found to be close to nominal, the in composition of QW in the other sample was found to depart significantly from the nominal 23%, and was found to be 28%. Room temperature and ~ 80K PR measurements were performed on three InAs/GaAs self-assembled quantum dot (QD) structures: a sample with a single layer of QDs, and two with two layers. The PR revealed five equally spaced confined-state QD transitions, at both 80K and room temperature, with ~ 54 meV separation. The behaviour of the QD1 transition as a function of temperature was investigated and an anomalous increase in linewidth was observed on cooling. Annealing of one of the samples produced a strong blue shift (~ 250 meV) and narrowing of the QD transitions.

The physical and chemical properties of In- and Au- interfaces with In[0.53]Ga[0.47]As/InP(100) and In[0.52]Al[0.48]As(100) formed at room and low temperatures have been studied. Current-voltage measurements have indicated that In contacts to Ino[0.53]Ga[0.47]As(100) formed at 80K exhibit significantly higher Schottky barriers (&phis;b=0.45 eV) than In diodes formed at 294K (&phis;b=0.30 eV), whereas Au diodes formed on In[0.53]Ga[0.47]As(100) at either low temperature or room temperature exhibit Ohmic behaviour. The reactions occurring during interface formation at room and low temperatures have been investigated using soft X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (SXPS) and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM).The results presented show that In metallisation of In[0.53]Ga[0.47]As(100) at room temperature results in a predominantly three dimensional mode of growth, accompanied by the out-diffusion of As. Low temperature (125K) metallisation appears to reduce clustering and inhibit As out-diffusion. Examination of the resulting interfaces by TEM confirm the more uniform nature of the metal layers formed at low temperature. Metallisation temperature seems to have little effect on the formation of Au-In[0.53]Ga[0.47]As(100) interfaces, other than to reduce the extent of overlayer clustering, with As out-diffusion apparent for both low and room temperature Au deposition. Interfaces formed between In and In[0.52]Al[0.48]As(100) at both low and room temperature were relatively abrupt with no out-diffusion of substrate species into the metal overlayer. Low temperature metallisation again appeared to reduce overlayer clustering, with TEM studies showing a smaller grain size at low temperature. Au deposition onto In[0.52]Al[0.48]As(100) produced similar interfaces formed at room and low temperature. As diffuses into the Au overlayer to form an Au/As compound at both temperatures, resulting in an interface that is complex and reacted. The degree of overlayer clustering is also thought to be much less pronounced for Au deposition compared to In deposition. Barrier heights measured by SXPS during the study, show good agreement with reported current-voltage measurements for Au and In diodes formed on both In[0.53]Ga[0.47]As/InP(100) and In[0.52]Al[0.48]As(100). Possible mechanisms for the observed adaptation of the pinning position are discussed in the context of current models of Schottky barrier formation.

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