Composition fluctuations in dilute nitride (Ga,In)(N,As)/GaAs heterostructures measured by low-loss electron energy-loss spectroscopy

We report on the investigation of composition fluctuations in epitaxially grown (Ga,In)(N,As) epilayers on GaAs(001) substrates by using electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS). The N and In concentrations are determined locally with a probe size of about 8 nm from the low-loss EELS measurements. We demonstrate that the small amount of N incorporating in dilute nitride alloys can be measured quantitatively by the plasmon energy shift with respect to a GaAs reference, and that the In content is analyzed simultaneously from the In 4d transitions, which have been isolated from the overlapping Ga 3d transitions. Our spatially resolved EELS results are utilized to discuss the origin of the inherent composition fluctuations and their influences on the morphological instabilities during epitaxial growth.