Asymmetric stark shifts of exciton in InAs/GaAs pyramidal quantum dots

Within the framework of the single-band effective-mass envelope-function theory, the effect of electric field on the electronic structures of pyramidal quantum dot is investigated. Taking the Coulomb interaction between the heavy holes and electron into account, the quantum confined Stark shift of the exciton as functions of the strength and direction of applied electric field and the size of the quantum dot are obtained. An interesting asymmetry of Stark shifts around the zero field is found. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.

Effective-mass theory for InAs/GaAs strained superlattices

By using the recently developed exact effective-mass envelope-function theory, the electronic structures of InAs/GaAs strained superlattices grown on GaAs (100) oriented substrates are studied. The electron and hole subband structures, distribution of electrons and holes along the growth direction, optical transition matrix elements, exciton states, and absorption spectra are calculated. In our calculations, the effects due to the different effective masses of electrons and holes in different materials and the strain are included. Our theoretical results are in agreement with the available experimental data.

Growth of high-quality relaxed In0.3Ga0.7As/GaAs superlattices

With a low strained InxGa1-xAs/GaAs(x similar to 0.01) superlattice (SL) buffer layer, the crystal quality of 50 period relaxed In0.3Ga0.7As/GaAs strained SLs has been greatly improved and over 13 satellite peaks are observed from X-ray double-crystal diffraction, compared with three peaks in the sample without the buffer layer. Cross-section transmission electron microscopy reveals that the dislocations due to superlattice strain relaxation are blocked by the SLs itself and are buried into the buffer layer. The role of the SL buffer layer lies in that the number of the dislocations is reduced in two ways: (1) the island formation is avoided and (2) the initial nucleation of the threading dislocations is retarded by the high-quality growth of the SL buffer layer. When the dislocation pinning becomes weak as a result of the reduced dislocation density, the SLs can effectively move the threading dislocations to the edge of the wafer.