Application of pseudopotential theory to magnetic semiconductor heterostructures

The results of empirical pseudopotential calculations for the semiconductor compound Cd_1 − xMn_xTe are presented. The effective electron and hole masses obtained from the pseudopotential calculations are then employed in an envelope function approximation, using two different effective mass Hamiltonians to evaluate the transition energies of the excitonic ground state in CdTe– Cd_1 − xMn_xTe quantum wells of variable width. It is shown that in non-magnetic systems it is not possible to utilize exciton energies alone to either distinguish between different model Hamiltonians or to quantify the interface roughness. However, it is shown that the latter can be quantified in magnetic systems via the resulting Zeeman effect.     

Tight-binding calculations of the subband structures of zincblende-semiconductor [001] quantum wells

The scattering-theoretic T-matrix method is used to calculate the subband structures of GaAs?ZnSe and ZnSe?ZnS_xSe_1?x [001] quantum wells within an empirical tight-binding model, that includes the bulk Г₆, Г₇ and Г₈ valence- and conduction bands. The resulting confinement energies for vanishing lateral crystal momentumk _‖ are compared with those, that are obtained from a simple effective mass model and effects are found and predicted which the effective mass model cannot account for. The effect of the band nonparabolicity and the influence of the microscopic sequence of atomic layers, which determines the symmetry properties of a quantum well, are studied for the GaAs?ZnSe wells.     

Analysis of large angle p-d elastic scattering: 100–400 MeV

An analysis is presented of large angle proton-deuteron elastic scattering experiments at deuteron energies of 291, 362 and 433 MeV and proton energies of 140 and 316 MeVon the basis of the Kerman-Kisslinger (KK) model (first order). Further analysis is made using the KK model with second order corrections included. The object of the analysis is to determine quantitatively the sensitivity of large angle scattering to the D-state probability (P_D) in the deuteron. It is found that the KK model (first order and also second order corrections included) is not very successful in fitting the data at those energies when used with existing wavefunctions obtained from phenomenological potentials. A value of 6.7% for P_D gives the best fit when the model is used with the modified Moravcsik analytic fit to the Gartenhaus S-state wavefunction (the third approximation). The incoherent contributions of first and second order non-exchange processes are roughly estimated and found to be negligible. An investigation of the ambiguities in the S-state part of the deuteron wavefunction is also presented.     

Electron effective mass determination in asymmetric modulation-doped field-effect transistor heterostructures using InxGa1 − xAs quantum well and InAs–GaAs superlattice channels

Cyclotron resonance and photoluminescence measurements have been performed on two types of modulation-doped field-effect transistor heterostructures having their bidimensional channel based, respectively, on an In_xGa_1 − xAs quantum well and an InAs–GaAs short-period superlattice. A linear dependence of the electron effective mass as a function of indium content of the channel was obtained from cyclotron resonance measurements. For a given average value of the indium content, the effective mass in the InAs–GaAs short-period superlattice channel is found to be systematically higher than that obtained in structures with an alloy-based channel. This is attributed to larger nonparabolic effects in the former case. In our theoretical model, the electron and heavy hole energy levels and the electron wavefunction are determined self-consistently and used to estimate the nonparabolic corrections that apply to the effective mass deduced from cyclotron resonance measurements.     

Simultaneous effects of temperature and pressure on diamagnetic susceptibility of a shallow donor in a quantum antidot

The effect of temperature and pressure, simultaneously, on the diamagnetic susceptibility and binding energy of a hydrogenic donor impurity at the center of a GaAs/Ga_1−xAl_xAs quantum antidot is studied within the effective mass approximation. For this goal, we first analytically solve the Schrödinger equation to obtain wavefunctions and energy levels. Then, using the electronic states, we can calculate the diamagnetic susceptibility. The results obtained from the present work reveals that (i) the diamagnetic susceptibility increases with increasing pressure, (ii) the diamagnetic susceptibility decreases by increasing temperature, (iii) the value of 〈r²〉 decreases with increasing pressure due to the quantum confinement, and (iv) an increase in the pressure enhances the binding energy for a constant temperature.     

Simultaneous effects of pressure and temperature on donors in a GaAlAs/GaAs quantum well

The ground state and a few excited state energies of a hydrogenic donor in a quantum well are computed in the presence of pressure and temperature. The binding energies are worked out for GaAs/ Ga_1−xAl_xAs structures as a function of well size when the pressure and temperature are applied simultaneously. A variational approach within the effective mass approximation is considered. The results show that for a constant applied pressure, an increase in temperature results in a decrease in donor impurity binding energy while an increase in the pressure for the same temperature enhances the binding energy. When the pressure and temperature are applied simultaneously the binding energy decreases as the well width increases. In all the cases, it is observed that there is an increase in the binding energy due to the decrease in the quantum well size and in the dielectric constant whereas the effects of temperature on the effective mass are minimal.     

Relativistic energies and transition probabilities for some highly excited levels in singly ionized indium

For some excited levels (n?8), the energies, wavelengths, oscillator strengths and transition probabilities calculations in singly ionized indium have been calculated within the framework of multiconfiguration Hartree-Fock approximation with relativistic corrections (Breit-Pauli Hamiltonian). The wavefunctions and some relativistic corrections have been obtained using MCHF-BP atomic package. Comparisons with other calculations and experiments are presented.     

Donor binding energies in GaAs quantum wells considering the band nonparabolicity effects and the wavefunction elongation

The donor binding energies in finite GaAs/Ga_xAl_1 − xAs quantum wells have been calculated by considering the confinement of electrons, which increases as the well width increases. The variational solutions have been improved by using a two-parameter trial wavefunction, and by including the conduction band nonparabolicity. It is shown that the method used gives results in agreement with those obtained in the experiments on the effective mass and the donor binding energy, both of which are strongly dependent on the well width.     

Effects of electric field and hydrostatic pressure on donor binding energies in a spherical quantum dot

The binding energies of a hydrogenic donor in a GaAs spherical quantum dot in the Ga_1−xAl_xAs matrix are presented assuming parabolic confinement. Effects of hydrostatic pressure and electric field are discussed on the results obtained using a variational method. Effects of the spatial variation of the dielectric screening and the effective mass mismatch are also investigated. Our results show that (i) the ionization energy decreases with dot size, with the screening function giving uniformly larger values for dots which are less than about 25 nm, (ii) the hydrostatic pressure increases the donor ionization energy such that the variation is larger for a smaller dot, and (iii) the ionization energy decreases in an electric field. All the calculations have been carried out with finite barriers and good agreement is obtained with the results available in the literature in limiting cases.     

Theory of plasmon excitations in (SN)x

The anomalous anisotropy and dispersion of plasmons in polymeric sulfur nitride (SN)_x are explained within a model of an electron gas with an anisotropic effective mass ratio. Calculations in the random phase approximation yield very good agreement with the electron loss data. Exchange corrections for the model are shown to be small for systems of the (SN)_x type which exhibit reduced dimensionality.     

High resolution spectroscopy on 6sns Rydberg states of barium

Extensive new data on perturbed and unperturbed levels of the 6s n s ¹ S ₀ and 6s n s ³ S ₁ Rydberg series of Barium have been obtained in a high-resolution laser atomic-beam experiment. Special attention has been paid to the region aboven=15 where the³ S ₁ series is strongly perturbed. The results on hyperfine energies and isotopic field shift ratios are compared with calculations using wavefunctions obtained from a Multi Channel Quantum Defect analysis. The applicability of various approximations to these wavefunctions is discussed. Good agreement between experiment and calculation is obtained.     

Electron energy spectra in an elliptic quantum wire and elliptic nanotube

In the effective mass approximation, the electron spectra in an elliptic quantum wire and elliptic semiconductor nanotube are investigated. An exact electron energy spectrum in the GaAs elliptic quantum wire and elliptic semiconductor nanotube with impenetrable walls is obtained and an approximate solution of the Schrödinger equation is derived for a finite potential barrier height in the GaAs/Al _x Ga _1?x As elliptic quantum wire. It is demonstrated that the ellipticity of the quantum wire and nanotube results in removal of degeneration of the quasiparticle energy spectrum. Dependences of energies of even and odd states on the ratio of the ellipse semiaxes are nonmonotonic in character. In the limiting case of degeneration of elliptic quantum wires and nanotubes into circular ones, the quasi-particle energy spectrum coincides with the corresponding spectrum in cylindrical nanosystems.     

The effective action of a spin 1/2 field in the background of a nontopological soliton

We generalize a new method of calculating the effective action for fields in a spherically symmetric background to the case of a spin 1/2 field whose mass is a function ofr=|x|, as it is the case in the nontopological soliton model of Friedberg and Lee. The quantum corrections to the soliton energy are sizeable, of the same order as the bound state energies that stabilize the soliton.     

Nonlinear properties in InxGa1 − xAs/GaAs multiple quantum well laser structures

In this paper we investigated nonlinear properties and lasing in In_xGa_1 − xAs/GaAs multiple quantum wells grown by metal-organic chemical vapour deposition. A systematic study, performed by high excitation photoluminescence measurements as a function of excitation intensity, allowed us to identify the minimum well width for observing stimulated emission from well states. We also determined the threshold for stimulated emission for well and barrier lasing. Radiative recombination energies are identified by using theoretical data obtained in the effective mass approximation, including boundary conditions and strain.     

Diamagnetic susceptibility of hydrogenic donor impurity in low-dimensional semiconducting systems

The binding energies of a hydrogenic donor both in the parabolic and non-parabolic conduction band model within the effective mass approximation have been computed for the low-dimensional semiconducting systems (LDSS) like quantum well, quantum well wire and quantum dot taking GaAs/Al_xGa_1−xAs systems as an example. It is observed that the effect of non-parabolicity is not effective when the system goes to lower dimensionality. The diamagnetic susceptibility of a hydrogenic donor impurity has also been computed in these LDSS in the infinite barrier model. Since no theoretical or experimental works on the diamagnetic susceptibility of LDSS are available in the literature, as a realistic case the diamagnetic susceptibility has been computed in the finite barrier model (x=0.3) for a quantum well and the results are discussed in the light of semiconductor-metal transition.     

Coulomb corrections to bremsstrahlung in the electric field of a heavy atom at high energies

We consider the differential and partially integrated cross sections for bremsstrahlung from high-energy electrons in an atomic field, with this field taken into account exactly. We use the semiclassical electron Green function and wavefunctions in an external electric field. It is shown that the Coulomb corrections to the differential cross section are very susceptible to screening. Nevertheless, the Coulomb corrections to the cross section summed over the final-electron states are independent of screening in the leading approximation in the small parameter 1/mr _scr (r _scr is the screening radius and m is the electron mass, ? = c = 1). We also consider bremsstrahlung from a finite-size electron beam on a heavy nucleus. The Coulomb corrections to the differential probability are also very susceptible to the beam shape, while the corrections to the probability integrated over momentum transfer are independent of it, apart from the trivial factor, which is the electron-beam density at zero impact parameter. For the Coulomb corrections to the bremsstrahlung spectrum, the next-to-leading terms with respect to the parameters mε (ε is the electron energy) and 1/mr _scr are obtained.     

Effect of electric field and central-cell corrections on the spectrum of shallow donors in parabolic quantum wells

The effects of the electric field and of the central-corrections on the binding energies of shallow donors in a Ga As/Ga_1−x Al _x As parabolic quantum well are studied. The effectivemass approximation within a variational scheme is adopted, and central-cell corrections are calculated by using a model potential with an adjustable parameter. For great values of the parabolic parameter, relatively large corrections are obtained for the shallow donors studied.     

External electric field, hydrostatic pressure and conduction band non-parabolicity effects on the binding energy and the diamagnetic susceptibility of a hydrogenic impurity quantum dot

Electric field, hydrostatic pressure and conduction band non-parabolicity effects on the binding energies of the lower-lying states and the diamagnetic susceptibility of an on-center hydrogenic impurity confined in a typical GaAs/Al_xGa_1−xAs spherical quantum dot is theoretically investigated, by direct diagonalization of the Hamiltonian. To this end, the effect of band non-parabolicity has been performed, by means of the Luttinger-Kohn effective mass equation. Binding energies and diamagnetic susceptibility of the hydrogenic impurity are computed as a function of the dot size, external electric field strength and hydrostatic pressure, with considering the edge-band non-parabolicity. Results show that the external electric field and the hydrostatic pressure have an obvious influence on the binding energies and the diamagnetic susceptibility of the impurity.     

Conduction band non-parabolicity effect on the optical absorption coefficient and refractive index changes of spherical quantum dots

Optical absorption coefficients and refractive index changes associated with intersubband transition in typical GaAs/Al_xGa_1−xAs spherical quantum dots are theoretically investigated, both in the presence and in the absence of the conduction band non-parabolicity effect. In this regard, the effect of band non-parabolicity on the eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of the dot has been performed using the Luttinger-Kohn effective mass equation. Also, by means of the compact-density-matrix approach the linear and nonlinear optical absorption coefficients and refractive index changes have been calculated. The results show that magnitudes of these quantities are decreased and the peaks are shifted to the lower energies as the influence of band non-parabolicity is considered.