Controlled intermixing in InGaAsP multiquantum wells by plasma immersion ion implantation of argon

In this paper, the diffusion enhanced intermixing effect in strained InGaAsP multiquantum wells due to plasma immersion ion implantation (PIII) of Ar⁺ and post-implant annealing is presented. Firstly, we report that a 20 kV Ar⁺ PIII at a fluency of 10¹⁶ cm^-2 together with a furnace anneal at 650 °C resulted in an enhanced blue shift in the photoluminescence (PL) peak. It was also found that by varying the Ar⁺ dose or the implantation energy, we could control the extent of the implantation induced intermixing. For a sample that had half of the surface shielded during implantation, a bandgap step was observed between the implanted and non-implanted regions. Our results indicate that one can use this technique for localized fine-tuning of the bandgap energy, thus demonstrating its potential as a processing step for the fabrication of integrated photonic devices.