Influence of holmium doping on the optical properties of quaternary InGaAsP epitaxial layers

Photoluminescence and photoconductivity measurements were used to study the influence of Ho doping on the optical properties of InGaAsP layers grown by liquid phase epitaxy (LPE). The full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the photoluminescence peak was found to decrease as the amount of Ho increases. When the amount of Ho is 0.11 wt%, the FWHM has a minimum value of 7.93 meV, about 46% lower than that of the undoped InGaAsP. The absorption tails observed in the photoconductivity were analyzed with the Urbach tail model and the Urbach energies were obtained from the fits. The Urbach energy decreases as the amount of Ho increases, indicating that Ho doping greatly reduces the amount of residual impurities in LPE-grown layers.