Investigation of p-n junction and dopant profiles in InP-based laser by low voltage SEM

The observation of p-n junctions and electrically active dopant profiles in InP-based heterostructures by secondary electron (SE) imaging in a low-voltage scanning electron microscope (LVSEM) is reported. These observations are shown to be qualitatively similar to secondary ion mass spectrometry dopant profiles in one dimension, and to selective etching results in two dimensions. The results support the conclusion that SE imaging by LVSEM can be used as a simple and powerful technique for qualitatively monitoring of one and two dimensional dopant distributions in InP-based devices