Deep traps at GaAs/GaAs interface grown by MBE-interruption growth technique

Electron trapping centers at the GaAs/GaAs interface grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE)-interruption growth technique have been studied by capacitance versus voltage (C–V) measurements and deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS). Two main electron traps have been revealed with activation energies at 0.16 eV and 0.52 eV from the conduction band. Inhomogeneous spatial distributions of the traps, obtained by DLTS profiling, indicate that they are agglomerated at the interrupted interface on a concentration level of (2–3) × 1015 cm− 3 at their maximum. Their behaviour is typical of acceptor-like traps when investigating by C–V profiling as a function of temperature. Based on a comparison made with electron traps in MBE-GaAs as well as with the traps in InAs/GaAs quantum dot/quantum well (QD/QW) structures, we conclude they are the well-known EL10 and EL4 defects, respectively, and their concentrations are growth condition dependent. They may be point defect-impurity complexes. Their presence may cause interpretation and application problems of the low-dimensional InAs/GaAs structures.