The exciton-longitudinal-optical-phonon coupling in InGaN/GaN single quantum wells with various cap layer thicknesses

This paper studies the exciton-longitudinal-optical-phonon coupling in InGaN/GaN single quantum wells with various cap layer thicknesses by low temperature photoluminescence (PL) measurements With increasing cap layer thickness, the PL peak energy shifts to lower energy and the coupling strength between the exciton and longitudinal-optical (LO) phonon, described by Huang-Rhys factor, increases remarkably due to an enhancement of the internal electric field With increasing excitation intensity, the zero-phonon peak shows a blueshift and the Huang-Rhys factor decreases These results reveal that there is a large built-in electric field in the well layer and the exciton-LO phonon coupling is strongly affected by the thickness of the cap layer

SCATTERING AND RESONANT-TUNNELING THEORY FOR A CYLINDRICAL WELL IN PLANAR STRUCTURES

A two-dimensional atomic scattering theory is developed for scattering of electrons by a circularly symmetric quantum structure in the two-dimensional electron gas. It is found that the scattering cross section oscillates as a function of ka where k is the electron wave vector and a is the radius of the cylindrical potential barrier. If there is a quantum well inside the potential barrier, there appears a series of sharp resonant-tunneling peaks superposed on the original scattering-cross-section curves. The width of the resonant-tunneling peak depends sensitively on the thickness, the height of the potential barrier, and the electron energy.

MODELING OF ELECTRON-TUNNELING TIMES IN ASYMMETRIC DOUBLE QUANTUM-WELLS

A scattering process modeled by an imaginary potential V(I) in the wide well of an asymmetric double quantum well structure (DQWS) is used to model the electron tunneling from the narrow well. Taking V(I) approximately -5 meV, the ground resonant level lifetimes of the narrow well in the DQWS are in quantitative agreement with the experimental resonance and non-resonance tunneling times. The corresponding scattering time 66 fs is much faster than the intersubband scattering time of LO-photon emission.

Collective excitations in coupled quantum wells

The dielectric response of a modulated three-dimensional electron system composed of a periodic array of quantum wells with weak coupling and strong coupling are studied, and the dispersions of the collective excitations and the single particle excitations as functions of wave vectors are given. It is found that for the nearly isolated multiple-quantum-well case with several subbands occupation, there is a three-dimensional-like plasmon when q(z)=0 (q(z) is the wave-vector component in the superlattice axis). There also exist intersubband collective excitations in addition to one intra-subband mode when q(z) not equal 0. The intra-subband mode has a linear dispersion relation with q(//) (the wave-vector component perpendicular to the superlattice axis) when q(//) is small. The inter-subband modes cover wider ranges in q(//) with increasing values of q(z). The energies of inter-subband collective excitations are close by the corresponding inter-subband single-particle excitation spectra. The collective excitation dispersions show obvious anisotropy in the 2D quantum limit. The calculated results agree with the experiment. The coupling between quantum wells affects markedly both the collective excitations and the single particle excitations spectra. The system shows gradually a near-three-dimensional electron gas character with increasing coupling. Copyright (C) 1996 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd

The mode control of asymmetric Fabry-Perot optical modulators with multiple quantum wells

The asymmetric Fabry-Perot (ASFP) mode position with the thickness of different index coating layer is calculated. The reason for the blue shift of the ASFP mode with the increasing thickness of low index coating layer is analyzed and this phenomenon is observed in experiments. With the wet-etching method, the ASFP mode can be tuned to the desired wavelength and thus the deviation of growth can be compensated. This method is used to improve the contrast ratio of modulators. With the ASFP mode located at different positions relative to the unbiased e-hh peak, different modulation characteristics are demonstrated.

Intersubband absorption from In0.26Ga0.74As/GaAs quantum dot superlattice

We have grown a high-quality 20 period InGaAs/GaAs quantum dot superlattice with a standard structure typically used for quantum well infrared photodetector. Normal incident absorption was observed around 13-15 mu m. Potential applications for this work include high-performance quantum dot infrared detectors.

Photoluminescence studies on the interaction of near-surface GaAs/AlxGa1-xAs quantum wells with chemical adsorbates

The chemical adsorption of sodium sulphide, ferrocene, hydroquinone and p-methyl-nitrobenzene onto the surface of a GaAs/AlxGa1-xAs multiquantum well semiconductor was characterized by steady state and time-resolved photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. The changes in the PL response, including the red shift of the emission peak of the exciton in the quantum well and the enhancement of the PL intensity, are discussed in terms of the interactions of the adsorbed molecules with surface states.

Subband separation energy dependence of intersubband relaxation time in wide quantum wells

Subband separation energy dependence of intersubband relaxation time in a wide quantum well (250 Angstrom) was studied by steady-state and time-resolved photoluminescence. By applying a perpendicular electrical field, the subband separation energy in the quantum well is continuously tuned from 21 to 40 meV. As a result, it is found that the intersubband relaxation time undergoes a drastic change from several hundred picoseconds to subpicoseconds. It is also found that the intersubband relaxation has already become very fast before the energy separation really reaches one optical phonon energy. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.

Exciton states in isolated quantum wires

The exciton states in isolated and semi-isolated quantum wires are studied. It is found that the image charges have a large effect on the effective Coulomb potential in wires. For the isolated wire the effective potential approaches the Coulomb potential in vacuum at large z distance. For the semi-isolated wire the effective potential is intermediate between the Coulomb potential in vacuum and the screened Coulomb potential at large distance. The exciton binding energy in the isolated wire is about ten times larger than that in the quantum well, and that in the semi-isolated wire is also intermediate between those in the isolated wire and in the quantum well. When the lateral width increases the binding energy decreases further, and approaches that in the quantum well. The real valence-band structure is taken into account, the exciton wave functions of the ground state in the zero-order approximation are given, and the reduced mass is calculated. The effect of the coupling between the ground and excited states are considered by the degenerate perturbation method, and it is found the coupling effect is small compared to the binding energy.

Valence hole subbands and optical gain spectra of GaN/Ga1-xAlxN strained quantum wells

The valence hole subbands, TE and TM mode optical gains, transparency carrier density, and radiative current density of the zinc-blende GaN/Ga0.85Al0.15N strained quantum well (100 Angstrom well width) have been investigated using a 6 X 6 Hamiltonian model including the heavy hole, Light hole, and spin-orbit split-off bands. At the k = 0 point, it is found that the light hole strongly couples with the spin-orbit split-off hole, resulting in the so+lh hybrid states. The heavy hole does not couple with the light hole and the spin-orbit split-off hole. Optical transitions between the valence subbands and the conduction subbands obey the Delta n=0 selection rule. At the k not equal 0 points, there is strong band mixing among the heavy hole, light hole, and spin-orbit split-off hole. The optical transitions do not obey the Delta n=0 selection rule. The compressive strain in the GaN well region increases the energy separation between the so1+lh1 energy level and the hh1 energy level. Consequently, the compressive strain enhances the TE mode optical gain, and strongly depresses the TM mode optical gain. Even when the carrier density is as large as 10(19) cm(-3), there is no positive TM mode optical gain. The TE mode optical gain spectrum has a peak at around 3.26 eV. The transparency carrier density is 6.5 X 10(18) cm(-3), which is larger than that of GaAs quantum well. The compressive strain overall reduces the transparency carrier density. The J(rad) is 0.53 kA/cm(2) for the zero optical gain. The results obtained in this work will be useful in designing quantum well GaN laser diodes and detectors. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.

GROWTH INTERRUPTION INDUCED INTERFACE MICROROUGHNESS IN SINGLE QUANTUM-WELLS

Growth interruption-induced microroughness is studied by photoluminescence (PL) of single quantum wells with different well widths and interruption times. Analysis of the peak splitting in the PL spectra shows that the adjacent peak splittings correspond to well width differences smaller than one monolayer. The number of split peaks increases with increasing well width, saturating when the well width exceeds 11 monolayers. This trend correlates well with the decrease in the lateral dimension of the exciton, which corresponds roughly to the minimum optically sampled area of the interface. For a given quantum well, a plot of the normalized integrated intensities of the split PL peaks versus the well width fluctuation is well described by a Gaussian distribution with an average fluctuation smaller than one monolayer. These results are consistent with the microroughness model.

A RESONANT RAMAN-STUDY ON PHONONS IN GAINAS/ALINAS MULTIPLE-QUANTUM WELLS

The LO phonon modes in the barrier layers of a GaInAs/AlInAs multiple quantum well structure are investigated by resonance Raman scattering (RRS), the excitation laser photon energy tuned to resonate with the above barrier interband transition energy. The resonance enhancement of LO phonon peaks are shown to be caused by Frohlich electron-phonon interaction. The pressure-dependent profiles for both AlAs-like (LO(2) mode) and InAs-like (LO(1) mode) Raman peak intensities are well fitted by the Gaussian lineshape. The shift between these two profiles can be explained by the outgoing RRS mechanism, providing information on the pressure-induced shift of the excitonic transition energy. The amplitude ratios of the two profiles are close to 1, showing a well defined two-mode behavior and the nearly equal polarizability for Al-As and In-As bonds in AlInAs alloy.

HIGH-POWER 2-DIMENSIONAL QUANTUM-WIRE LASER ARRAYS

GaAs/AIGaAs two-dimensional quantum-well wire laser arrays fabricated by metal-organic chemical vapour deposition on nonplanar substrates have realised a linear light pulse output Fewer of over 100mW. This is the highest figure reported to date for all kinds of quantum-well wire lasers.

PHOTOLUMINESCENCE STUDIES ON VERY HIGH-DENSITY 2-DIMENSIONAL ELECTRON GASES IN PSEUDOMORPHIC MODULATION-DOPED QUANTUM-WELLS

We present photoluminescence studies on highly dense two-dimensional electron gases in selectively Si delta-doped GaAs/In0.18Ga0.82As/Al0.25Ga0.75As quantum wells (N(s) = 4.24 x 10(12) cm-2). Five well-resolved photoluminescence lines centered at 1.4194, 1.4506, 1.4609, 1.4695 and 1.4808 eV were observed, which are attributed to the subband excition emission. The subband separations clearly exhibit the feature of a typical quantum well with triangle and square potential. These very intensive and sharp luminescence peaks with linewidths of 2.2 to 3.5 meV indicate the high quality of the structures. Their dependence on the excitation intensity and temperatures are also discussed.

Calculation of Valence Subband Structures for Strained Quantum-Wells by Plane Wave Expansion Method Within 6 * 6 Luttinger-Kohn Model

The valence subband energies and wave functions of a tensile strained quantum well are calculated by the plane wave expansion method within the 6 * 6 Luttinger-Kohn model. The effect of the number and period of plane-waves used for expansion on the stability of energy eigenvalues is examined. For practical calculation, it should choose the period large sufficiently to ensure the envelope functions vanish at the boundary and the number of plane waves large enough to ensure the energy eigenvalues keep unchanged within a prescribed range.