Wavy growth onset in strain-balanced InGaAs multi-quantum wells

The existence of a critical elastic energy density for the wavy growth onset has been experimentally confirmed by changing both the well and barrier misfit and the multi-quantum well layer thickness. A decrease of the growth temperature shifts the critical energy to higher values. An empirical model to predict the maximum number of layers that can be grown without modulations as a function of the strain energy stored in the MQW period and the growth temperature is presented and successfully applied for the growth of high quality 40 repetitions MQWs with a well misfit of about 1.5%.