Influence of InAs coverage on transition of size distribution and optical properties of InAs quantum dots

The influence of InAs coverage on the formation of self-assembled quantum dots grown by molecular-beam epitaxy was investigated by atomic force microscopy and photoluminescence measurements. As the InAs coverage increased from 2.0 to 3.0 monolayers, the quantum dot density decreased from 1.1×10¹¹ to 1.36×10¹⁰ cm^-2. This result could be attributed to the coalescence of neighboring small InAs quantum dots resulting in the formation of much larger InAs quantum dots with lower quantum dot density. Atomic force microscopy results revealed that as the InAs quantum dot coverage increased, the transition of size distribution of InAs quantum dots from single-modal to multimodal occurred. The temperature-dependent photoluminescence spectra showed that the photoluminescence spectra red shifted and the photoluminescence peak intensity decreased as the InAs coverage increased. The thermal activation energy was strongly dependent on the InAs coverage, and for InAs quantum dots with 3.0 ML thick InAs coverage, this energy was estimated to be 147 meV.