Semiconductor structures utilizing semiconductor support means

Abstract

Different diffusion rates can be made operative relative to diffusion disordering in designated areas of a thin active layer or of quantum well feature compared to thermal disordering in other areas thereof where disordering is not desired by the selective placement of migratory defects in a semiconductor support means, such as a semiconductor substrate or semiconductor support layer for supporting subsequently epitaxially deposited semiconductor layers. Such migratory defects as used herein are intended to include impurities and/or other lattice defects initially introduced into the semiconductor support means prior to epitaxial deposition of semiconductor layers constituting the semiconductor structure, wherein at least one of such layers comprises a thin active layer (i.e., a layer with relative higher refractive index compared to the refractive index of at least contiguous epitaxially deposited layers) not necessarily capable of exhibiting quantum size effects or a quantum well feature capable of exhibiting quantum size effects. These migratory defects diffuse or migrate into subsequently grown epitaxial layers providing regions of higher lattice defects in the epigrown layers compared to regions of the same layers where no migratory defects were initially introduced into the semiconductor support means.