InGaAs/GaAs quantum well intermixing using proton irradiation for non-absorbing mirror

•We developed a proton-irradiation-induced intermixing method for InGaAs/GaAs quantum well heterostructures with thick cladding layers.•We achieved blue-shift energy up to 30 meV of the photoluminescence spectra.•We calculated that the relative absorption coefficient at the laser wavelength for the irradiated sample was 0.045.•The resulting low absorption coefficient show the possibility of the proton-irradiation induced intermixing for laser diode with thick cladding layer.

We report a proton irradiation-induced intermixing on InGaAs/GaAs quantum well (QW) heterostructures with thick upper cladding layers. Proton irradiation was performed with different dose, followed with annealing. Proton irradiated and annealed sample shows the blue-shift of the photoluminescence (PL) spectra and the blue-shift energy was increased up to about 30 meV with increasing dose, but was insensitive to the annealing temperature. Finally, we calculated that the relative absorption coefficient at the laser wavelength for the irradiated sample with dose of 1 × 1016/cm2 was 0.045, suggesting such proton irradiation-induced intermixing is a promising approach for fabricating non-absorbing mirror.