Local vibration modes and nitrogen incorporation in AlGaAs: N layers

Abstract

Raman scattering measurements in dilute AlGaAs:N films grown by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy on (100) GaAs substrates reveal strong local vibration modes (LVM) associated to N complexes. The LVM observed frequencies between 325 and 540 cm–1 are in good agreement with density functional theory supercell calculations of AlnGa4–nN complexes (n = 1,2,3,4). We find that the observed LVMs correspond to all n values including Al4N. The LVMs spectra are resonant at energies around 1.85 eV. The values of the extended phonon frequencies of the ternary compound (GaAs and AlAs-like) reveal changes in the N distribution depending on the growth conditions: A transition from random- to nonrandom nitrogen distribution is observed upon increasing the growth temperature. Our results confirm the preferential bonding of N to Al in AlGaAs:N, due to the higher Al-N bond strength as compared to the Ga-N bond.