The polarization dependence of the Franz–Keldysh effect (FKE) in metalorganic vapor phase epitaxially grown AlGaInP/GaInP/AlGaInPp-i-ndouble heterostructures was investigated for samples with different ordering parameters. We determine an ordering induced shift of the FK spectra of up to 13 meV between light polarized along the [011] and [01-1] crystal directions. Due to the FKE the transmitted light intensity ratio between the respective polarizations was changed from 0.2 to 2.8 dB by applying an electric field of 335 kV/cm. ©1997 American Institute of Physics.