Argon plasma induced photoluminescence enhancement and quantum well intermixing of InGaAs/InGaAlAs multiple quantum wells

Argon plasma bombardment followed by rapid thermal annealing for InGaAs/InGaAlAs multiple quantum-well structures grown by molecular beam epitaxy has been found to strongly enhance the intensity of room-temperature photoluminescence signal by more than an order of magnitude. The strength of the photoluminescence signal is found to be dependent on the plasma RF power and bombardment time. The resulting blue shift of the photoluminescence wavelength due to quantum well intermixing is found to be under 15 nm.