Raman scattering by folded acoustic phonons in InGaN/GaN superlattices

We use Raman scattering to investigate the folded longitudinal acoustic (LA) phonons in a series of InxGa1-xN/GaN superlattices (SLs) grown by molecular beam epitaxy with different compositions (15% < x < 38%) and SL periods (from 8 to 20 nm). A novel, ultralow wavenumber filtering module, which provides access to ultralow wavenumber Raman modes on single-grating spectrometers, has been used to perform the Raman measurements. Zone-folding effects are observed, and the wavenumber behavior of the folded LA modes is well reproduced with a linear dispersion for the folded LA modes as predicted by elastic continuum theory. We employ the wavenumber of the doublets to evaluate the period of the SLs. Copyright (C) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.