Existence of a critical threshold for the wavy growth onset in strain-balanced InGaAs-based multi-quantum wells

Different strain-balanced InGaAs/InGaAs MQWs were grown on InP for thermophotovoltaic applications. Increasing the elastic strain in the structures results in the wavy growth onset which occurs after a critical value of the elastic energy density is achieved. A decrease of the growth temperature leads the critical energy to shift to higher values. On the basis of these results, an empirical model to predict the maximum number of layers that can be grown without thickness modulations as a function of the elastic energy density per period and the growth temperature is presented.