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Aluminium gallium arsenide (also gallium aluminium arsenide) ( Al_x Ga_1−x As) is a

semiconductor material A semiconductor is a material with electrical conductivity between that of a Electrical conductor, conductor and an Insulator (electricity), insulator. Its conductivity can be modified by adding impurities ("doping (semiconductor), doping") to ...

with very nearly the same

lattice constant A lattice constant or lattice parameter is one of the physical dimensions and angles that determine the geometry of the unit cells in a crystal lattice, and is proportional to the distance between atoms in the crystal. A simple cubic crystal has ...

GaAs Gallium arsenide (GaAs) is a III-V direct band gap semiconductor with a zinc blende crystal structure. Gallium arsenide is used in the manufacture of devices such as microwave frequency integrated circuits, monolithic microwave integrated circui ...

, but a larger

bandgap In solid-state physics and solid-state chemistry, a band gap, also called a bandgap or energy gap, is an energy range in a solid where no electronic states exist. In graphs of the electronic band structure of solids, the band gap refers to the ...

. The ''x'' in the formula above is a number between 0 and 1 - this indicates an arbitrary

alloy An alloy is a mixture of chemical elements of which in most cases at least one is a metal, metallic element, although it is also sometimes used for mixtures of elements; herein only metallic alloys are described. Metallic alloys often have prop ...

between

and AlAs. The chemical formula ''AlGaAs'' should be considered an abbreviated form of the above, rather than any particular ratio. The bandgap varies between 1.42 eV (GaAs) and 2.16 eV (AlAs). For x < 0.4, the bandgap is direct. The

refractive index In optics, the refractive index (or refraction index) of an optical medium is the ratio of the apparent speed of light in the air or vacuum to the speed in the medium. The refractive index determines how much the path of light is bent, or refrac ...

is related with the bandgap via the

Kramers–Kronig relations The Kramers–Kronig relations, sometimes abbreviated as KK relations, are bidirectional mathematics, mathematical relations, connecting the real number, real and imaginary number, imaginary parts of any complex analysis, complex function that is a ...

and varies between 2.9 (x = 1) and 3.5 (x = 0). This allows the construction of Bragg mirrors used in

VCSEL The vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL ) is a type of semiconductor laser diode with laser beam emission perpendicular from the top surface, contrary to conventional edge-emitting semiconductor lasers (also called ''in-plane'' laser ...

s, RCLEDs, and substrate-transferred crystalline coatings. Aluminium gallium arsenide is used as a barrier material in GaAs based heterostructure devices. The AlGaAs layer confines the electrons to a gallium arsenide region. An example of such a device is a quantum well infrared photodetector (

QWIP A Quantum Well Infrared Photodetector (QWIP) is an infrared photodetector, which uses electronic intersubband transitions in quantum wells to absorb photons. In order to be used for infrared detection, the parameters of the quantum wells in the quan ...

). It is commonly used in

-based

red Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–750 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a seconda ...

- and near-

infra-red Infrared (IR; sometimes called infrared light) is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than that of visible light but shorter than microwaves. The infrared spectral band begins with the waves that are just longer than those of ...

-emitting (700–1100 nm) double-hetero-structure

laser diode file:Laser diode chip.jpg, The laser diode chip removed and placed on the eye of a needle for scale A laser diode (LD, also injection laser diode or ILD or semiconductor laser or diode laser) is a semiconductor device similar to a light-emittin ...

Safety and toxicity aspects

The toxicology of AlGaAs has not been fully investigated. The dust is an irritant to skin, eyes and lungs. The environment, health and safety aspects of aluminium gallium arsenide sources (such as

trimethylgallium Trimethylgallium, often abbreviated to TMG or TMGa, is the organogallium compound with the formula Ga(CH3)3. It is a colorless, pyrophoric liquid. Unlike trimethylaluminium, TMG adopts a monomeric structure. When examined in detail, the monome ...

and

arsine Arsine (IUPAC name: arsane) is an inorganic compound with the formula As H3. This flammable, pyrophoric, and highly toxic pnictogen hydride gas is one of the simplest compounds of arsenic. Despite its lethality, it finds some applications in th ...

) and industrial hygiene monitoring studies of standard

MOVPE Metalorganic vapour-phase epitaxy (MOVPE), also known as organometallic vapour-phase epitaxy (OMVPE) or metalorganic chemical vapour deposition (MOCVD), is a chemical vapour deposition method used to produce single- or polycrystalline thin films. ...

sources have been reported recently in a review.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Aluminium Gallium Arsenide Arsenides Aluminium compounds Gallium compounds III-V semiconductors III-V compounds Light-emitting diode materials Zincblende crystal structure