Observation of carrier depletion and emission effects on capacitance dispersion in relaxed in_0.2Ga_0.8As/GaAs quantum wells

Strong changes in capacitance over frequency are found for highly relaxed In_0.2Ga_0.8As/GaAs quantum well. The high-frequency dispersion is explained by a resistance-capacitance time constant effect due to the existence of a high resistive layer while the low-frequency dispersion is due to carrier emission from traps. The high-resistance layer is created by carrier depletion when InGaAs thickness increases beyond the critical thickness. Excellent agreement is found between the data from capacitance-frequency spectra and deep-level transient spectroscopy, permitting us to conclude that both the carrier depletion and emission effects observed in capacitance-frequency spectra are due to the existence of an acceptor trap at 0.33 eV. This trap is generated when the InGaAs thickness is beyond its critical thickness and is due to defect states associated with misfit dislocations.