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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 February 2011
X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and photoluminescence measurements have been made on strained InxGa1-xAs/GaAs quantum well structures. The well widths measured from TEM are 187, 115 and 69 Å for an interrupted growth, and 218, 126, 60 Å for a non-interrupted growth. In the measured x-ray diffraction patterns, the Pendellosung fringes due to GaAs barriers are modulated by a broad weak peak mostly coming from the thickest InxGa1-xAs well layer and is fairly symmetric for the noninterrupted sample. For the interrupted quantum well, the x-ray diffraction pattern is less symmetric, since there is further modulation by another broader and weaker peak. This results show that the In content in the InxGa1-xAs well layers are not well controlled for the interrupted quantum well. Using actual thickness measured from TEM, x-ray diffraction patterns are calculated and good agreement is obtained between the measured and the calculated x-ray diffraction patterns. The three strained InxGa1-xAs/Gaks quantum wells grown without interruption produce high intensity and narrow full-width at half-maximum (FWHIM) of 2.9 meV of the photoluminescence peak. The photoluminescence peaks for the interrupted quantum well are relatively broad and asymmetric, and have lower intensities, indicating that better quality InxGa1-xAs/GaAs quantum wells can be grown without interruption.