Radiative recombination characteristics in GaAs multilayer n(+)-i interfaces

In this communication, we have carried out a detailed investigation of radiative recombination in n-GaAs homojunction far-infrared detector structures with multilayer emitter (n(+))-intrinsic (i) interfaces by temperature-dependent steady-state photoluminescence measurements. The observation of the emitter-layer luminescence structures has been identified from their luminescence characteristics, in combination with high density theoretical calculation. A photogenerated carrier transferring model has been proposed, which can well explain the dependencies of the luminescence intensities on the laser excitation intensity and temperature. Furthermore, the obtained radiative recombination behavior helps us to offer a proposal to improve the operating temperature of the detector. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.