Investigation of diffusion in AlAs/GaAs distributed Bragg reflectors using HAADF STEM imaging

Abstract

In this contribution we have studied the diffusion of Al in AlAs/GaAs distributed Bragg-reflectors using the high angle annular dark field (HAADF) scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) intensity. The measured intensity is normalized to the intensity of the incoming electron beam using a detector scan. The normalized intensity can be directly compared with a set of frozen lattice simulations yielding specimen thickness in regions with known composition or concentration in regions with known thickness. The thickness was evaluated both from GaAs and AlAs regions yielding that the specimen was about 15 nm thinner in AlAs regions due to oxidation. For the concentration evaluation the thickness was derived from GaAs regions and concentrations up to 1.2 were found due to the overestimated thickness. Concentration profiles were scaled down to 1.0 and fitted to the solution of Fick's laws.