Semiconductor quantum wells imaged by an optical microscope

Summary form only given. Examinations of dimensional properties of semiconductor heterostructures, such as interface quality and quantum well layer thickness, require equipments with nanometer-scale resolution, and thus transmission electron microscopy (TEM) technique is exclusively used for this purpose. Though this technique has been very successful and unique in a sense, it is costly and time-consuming, and therefore often discourages users, who might use the technique much more frequently otherwise. We propose to use a simple wet etching technique to cross-section a heterostructure (InGaAs/GaAs multiple quantum well) at a very shallow angle. Upon forming a vertical taper through a semiconductor heterostructure, a vertically small-scale structure such as a quantum well can be effectively magnified in the lateral direction by the tangent law.