Temperature dependence of the inelastic scattering in a GaAs/n-AlGaAs selectively doped heterojunction with InGaAs quantum dots

Inelastic scattering processes of two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) have been investigated in a inverted GaAs/n-AlGaAs heterojunction with self-organized InGaAs quantum dots (QDs) embedded near the 2DEG channel where the electron population in the QDs is controllable by the gate voltage V_g. By analyzing magnetoresistance, the inelastic scattering time τ_ε have been evaluated as functions of V_g at 0.6, 0.8, 1.2, and 1.7 K. It is found that τ_ε increases with V_g below 0.8 K and decreases above 1.2 K, which suggests that the dominant scattering mechanisms below 0.8 K and above 1.2 K are different. To interpret this behavior, we have calculated the inelastic scattering time theoretically. It is found that the experimental data are well explained by a theoretical model where a 2D electron is considered to be inelastically scattered both by the other 2D electrons and by the trapped electrons in QDs. It is also found that the 2DEG–2DEG scattering is dominant at low temperature, while the 2DEG-QDs scattering becomes important as the temperature increases.     

Controlling the charging energy of arrays of tunnel junctions

We describe a new technique to control in situ charging energy of systems of coupled metallic or superconducting islands. To illustrate the technique, we have fabricated two-dimensional arrays of Al islands on GaAs/AlAs heterostructures. Each island is coupled to its nearest-neighbor by a submicron Al/AlO_x/Al tunnel junction and to the three-dimensional electron gas (3DEG) located below the surface of the heterostructure by a capacitance C_g. We vary C_g, which dominates the charging energy of the array, by depleting the electrons in the 3DEG by means of a negative voltage applied to the array. With the array driven normal by a magnetic field, a decrease in C_g increases in both the offset voltage and the period of the Coulomb blockade oscillations.     

Laterally patterned high mobility two-dimensional electron gases obtained by overgrowth of focused ion beam implanted Al1−xGaxAs

The use of focused ion beam implantation doping of an inverted GaAs/Al_1−xGa_xAs heterostructure during a growth interruption allows for the lateral modulation of the heterostructure doping. Hence, laterally patterned two dimensional electron gases (2DEGs) are obtained with no further processing steps required. We have performed the direct writing of a 2DEG with a Hall-bar pattern, such that only the application of ohmic contacts was necessary and the sample surface remained unharmed otherwise. The 2DEG has an electron density of 3.6×10¹¹ cm⁻² and an electron mobility of 4.8×10⁵ cm²/V s, as determined by magnetotransport measurements. A conventional mesa-etched Hall-bar with almost identical electronic properties has also been studied. Different behaviour of the longitudinal as well as the transversal magnetoresistance for the two Hall-bars is observed and can be concluded to be due to a different confinement potential.     

Single electron charging effects in semiconductor quantum dots

We have studied charging effects in a lateral split-gate quantum dot defined by metal gates in the two dimensional electron gas (2 DEG) of a GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure. The gate structure allows an independent control of the conductances of the two tunnel barriers separating the quantum dot from the two 2 DEG leads, and enables us to vary the number of electrons that are localized in the dot. We have measured Coulomb oscillations in the conductance and the Coulomb staircase in current-voltage characteristics and studied their dependence on the conductances of the tunnel barriers. We show experimentally that at zero magnetic field charging effects start to affect the transport properties when both barrier conductances are smaller than the first quantized conductance value of a point contact at 2e ²/h. The experiments are described by a simple model in terms of electrochemical potentials, which includes both the discreteness of the electron charge and the quantum energy states due to confinement.     

Conductance oscillations and transport spectroscopy of a quantum dot

Results are reported for low temperature measurements of the conductance through small regions of a two-dimensional electron gas (2 DEG). An unconventional GaAs heterostructure is used to form a 2 DEG whose density can be tuned by the gate voltage applied to its conductive substrate. Electron beam lithography is used to pattern a narrow channel in the 2 DEG interrupted by two constrictions, defining a small 2 DEG island between them. The conductance is found to oscillate periodically with the gate voltage, namely with electron density. Calculations of the capacitance between the substrate and the island show that the period of oscillation corresponds to adding one electron to the island. The oscillatory behavior results primarily from the discreteness of charge and the Coulomb interaction between electrons. However, the observed temperature dependence of these oscillations requires a more sophisticated treatment which includes the quantized electron energy levels as well. The magnetic field dependence of the oscillations allows us to extract the discrete energy spectrum of the quantum dot in the quantum-Hall regime.     

Electroreflectance studies of thin GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well structures with tunable 2DEG densities

We report the results of low-temperature electroreflectance (ER) and photoluminescence (PL) investigations on thin n-type modulation-doped GaAs/AlGaAs single quantum well structures. The density of the two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) is varied continuously from zero to N_s∼6*10¹¹ cm^-2, using a Schottky gate, and is detected optically via the Stokes shift between the ER and PL subband transitions. For the first time, the splitting between transitions involving the first electron subband and the first heavy and light hole subbands, respectively, is studied as a function of the 2DEG density using ER spectroscopy. The results are discussed in comparison with the calculated in-plane dispersion of the hole subbands. Clear evidence is given for the influence of exciton screening effects.     

Fermi edge singularity evidence from photoluminescence spectroscopy of AlGaAs/InGaAs/GaAs pseudomorphic HEMTs grown on (3 1 1)A GaAs substrates

InGaAs/AlGaAs/GaAs pseudomorphic high electron mobility transistor (P-HEMT) structures were grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) on (3 1 1)A GaAs substrates with different well widths, and studied by photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy as a function of temperature and excitation density.The PL spectra are dominated by one or two spectral bands, corresponding, respectively, to one or two populated electron sub-bands in the InGaAs quantum well. An enhancement of PL intensity at the Fermi level energy (E_F) in the high-energy tail of the PL peak is clearly observed and associated with the Fermi edge singularity (FES). This is practically detected at the same energy for all samples, in contrast with energy transitions in the InGaAs channel, which are shifted to lower energy with increasing channel thickness. PL spectra at low temperature and low excitation density are used to optically determine the density of the two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) in the InGaAs channel for different thicknesses. The results show an enhancement of the 2DEG density when the well width increases, in good agreement with our previous theoretical study.     

在C70固体/p-GaAs结构中的甚深深能级

发展了恒温电容瞬态数据处理方法，称新方法为恒温电容瞬态时间积谱(ICTTS).用ICT TS方法测量分析了C₇₀固体/p GaAs异质结的深能级，结果发现在C₇₀固体中存在两个很深的空穴陷阱，H C₁和H₂，它们的能级位置分别为Ev⁺⁰856eV和 Ev+1037eV. 关键词： 70')" href="#">C₇₀ 深能级 恒温电容瞬态     

Optical control of the mobility of a MODFET with a layer of self-assembled quantum dots

We report an experimental study of GaAs/Al_0.33Ga_0.67As modulation doped field effect (MODFET) transistors, in which an InAs layer of self-assembled quantum dots is placed in one of the Al_0.33Ga_0.67As barrier layers close to the two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG). We find the source–drain resistance is bistable with the two states controlled by illumination and applied gate bias. Brief illumination induces a large, persistent drop in the resistance, which can be recovered by applying a positive gate bias. Magneto-transport measurements show that while illumination causes only a relatively small change in the 2DEG density, it can greatly enhance its mobility. We suggest this is because the 2DEG mobility is limited by percolation of the electrons through the rough electrostatic potential induced by the charged dots. Illumination reduces the negative charge trapped in the dots, thus smoothing the conduction band potential, which produces a large increase in the mobility.     

Strong resonant intersubband magnetopolaron effect in heavily modulation-doped GaAs/AlGaAs single quantum wells at high magnetic fields

Electron cyclotron resonance (CR) has been studied in magnetic fields up to 32 T in two heavily modulation-δ-doped GaAs/Al_0.3Ga_0.7As single quantum well samples. Little effect on electron CR is observed in either sample in the region of resonance with the GaAs LO phonons. However, above the LO-phonon frequency energy E_LO at B>27 T, electron CR exhibits a strong avoided-level-crossing splitting for both samples at energies close to E_LO+(E₂−E₁), where E₂, and E₁ are the energies of the bottoms of the second and the first subbands, respectively. The energy separation between the two branches is large, reaching a minimum of about 40 cm⁻¹ around 30.5 T for both samples. This splitting is due to a three-level resonance between the second LL of the first electron subband and the lowest LL of the second subband plus an LO phonon. The large splitting in the presence of high electron densities is due to the absence of occupation (Pauli-principle) effects in the final states and weak screening for this three-level process.     

Giant commensurability oscillations in a stressed surface superlattice

We have fabricated a novel type of lateral surface superlattice device comprising parallel, stressed ribs of In_0.2Ga_0.8As on a GaAs/Al_0.3Ga_0.7As heterostructure containing a high mobility two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG). Magnetotransport measurements were used to deduce the form and magnitude of the potential modulation. These experiments, supported by our calculations, indicate the importance of both piezoelectric coupling of stress to the electrons and the repulsive potential induced in the 2DEG by the removal of layers from the surface to define the superlattice.     

显微光谱研究半绝缘GaAs带边以上E0+Δ0光学性质

通过显微光致发光技术和显微拉曼(Raman)技术研究了半绝缘GaAs (SI-GaAs)晶体的带边附近的发光. 在光荧光谱中，观察到在高于GaAs带边0.348eV处有一个新的荧光峰. 结合Raman谱指认此发光峰来源于GaAs的E₀＋Δ₀能级的非平衡荧光发射. 同时, 通过研究E₀＋Δ₀能级的偏振、激发光强度依赖关系，以及温度依赖关系说明E₀＋Δ₀能级与带边E₀共享了共同的导带位置Γ₆，同时这也说明在GaAs中主要是导带的性质决定了材料的光学行为.同时，通过与n-GaAs和δ掺杂GaAs相比较，半绝缘GaAs晶体的E₀＋Δ₀能级的发光峰更能反映GaAs电子能级高临界点E₀＋Δ₀的能量位置和物理性质. 研究结果说明显微光致发光技术是研究半导体材料带边以上能级光学性质的一种非常有力的研究工具. 关键词： 半绝缘GaAs 显微光致发光 自旋轨道分裂     

Electron heating in a submicron-size n GaAs wire

We have studied electron heating in a submicron-size GaAs wire from 4.2 K to 50 K. We find that the energy relaxation rate for the electrons is of the form τ_E⁻¹ = α + βT_eⁿ where α, β are constants and T_e is the electron temperature. We associate the temperature-independent term with a quasi-elastic surface scattering process in which an electron losses 1% of its energy at each collision. The temperature dependent term may be due to electron-phonon scattering. It is possible to fit the data to 2 < n < 3.     

Quantum point contacts on InGaAs/InP heterostructures

For the first time we have observed quantized conductance in a split gate quantum point contact prepared in a strained In_0.77Ga_0.23As/InP two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG). Although quantization effects in gated two-dimensional semiconductor structures are theoretically well known and proven in various experiments on AlGaAs/GaAs and also on In_0.04Ga_0.96As/GaAs, no quantum point contact has been presented in the InGaAs/InP material with an indium fraction as high as 77% so far. The major problem is the comparatively low Schottky barrier of the InGaAs (φ_B≈ 0.2 eV) making leakage-free gate structures difficult to obtain. Nevertheless this heterostructure—especially with the highest possible indium content—has remarkable properties concerning quantum interference devices and semiconductor/superconductor hybrid devices because of its large phase coherence length and the small depletion zone, respectively. In order to produce leakage-free split gate point contacts the samples were covered with an insulating SiO₂layer prior to metal deposition. The gate geometry was defined by electron-beam lithography. In this paper we present first measurements of a point contact on an In_0.77Ga_0.23As/InP 2DEG clearly showing quantized conductance.     

Quantized current in a quantum dot turnstile

We have performed RF experiments on a lateral quantum dot defined in the two dimensional electron gas (2DEG) of a GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure. The small capacitance of the quantum dot gives rise to single-electron charging effects, which we employed to realize a quantum dot turnstile device. By modulating the tunnel barriers between the quantum dot and the 2DEG leads with two phase-shifted RF signals, we pass an integer number of electrons through the quantum dot per RF cycle. This is demonstrated by the observation of quantized current plateaus at multiples ofef in current-voltage characteristics, wheref is the frequency of the RF signals. When an asymmetry is induced by applying unequal RF voltages, our quantum dot turnstile operates as a single-electron pump producing a quantized current at zero bias voltage.     

Inelastic scattering processes in GaAs/n-AlGaAs selectively doped heterojunctions with InGaAs quantum dots

Inelastic scattering processes of the two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) in both normal and inverted n-AlGaAs/GaAs heterojunction FET structures have been studied, for the case where InGaAs dots are embedded in the vicinity of GaAs channel. By analyzing the magnetoresistance data, the inelastic scattering time τ_in is determined as a function of the concentration N_2D of 2D electrons and shown to be reduced by 10–40% by the presence of InGaAs dots. By investigating a GaAs/n-AlGaAs inverted heterojunction FET with embedded InGaAs dots, we have varied the percentage P_oc of charged dots filled with an electron and found that τ_in decreases as P_oc increases, indicating that the inelastic scattering rate of 2DEG by charged dots is higher than that by the neutral ones.     

DX-center energy calculation with quantitative mobility spectrum analysis in n-AlGaAs/GaAs structures with low Al content

Experimental Hall data that were carried out as a function of temperature (60–350 K) and magnetic field (0–1.4 T) were presented for Si-doped low Al content (x=0.14) n–Al_xGa_1−xAs/GaAs heterostructures that were grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). A 2-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) conduction channel and a bulk conduction channel were founded after implementing quantitative mobility spectrum analysis (QMSA) on the magnetic field dependent Hall data. An important decrease in 2DEG carrier density was observed with increasing temperature. The relationship between the bulk carriers and 2DEG carriers was investigated with 1D self consistent Schrödinger–Poisson simulations. The decrement in the 2DEG carrier density was related to the DX-center carrier trapping. With the simulation data that are not included in the effects of DX-centers, 17 meV of effective barrier height between AlGaAs/GaAs layers was found for high temperatures (T>300 K). With the QMSA extracted values that are influenced by DX-centers, 166 meV of the DX-center activation energy value were founded at the same temperatures.     

Effects of donor density and temperature on electron systems in AlGaN/AlN/GaN and AlGaN/GaN structures

It was reported by Shen et al that the two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) in an AlGaN/AlN/GaN structure showed high density and improved mobility compared with an AlGaN/GaN structure, but the potential of the AlGaN/AlN/GaN structure needs further exploration. By the self-consistent solving of one-dimensional Schr\"{o}dinger--Poisson equations, theoretical investigation is carried out about the effects of donor density (0--1\times 10¹⁹cm^-3 and temperature (50--500K) on the electron systems in the AlGaN/AlN/GaN and AlGaN/GaN structures. It is found that in the former structure, since the effective \Delta E_c is larger, the efficiency with which the 2DEG absorbs the electrons originating from donor ionization is higher, the resistance to parallel conduction is stronger, and the deterioration of 2DEG mobility is slower as the donor density rises. When temperature rises, the three-dimensional properties of the whole electron system become prominent for both of the structures, but the stability of 2DEG is higher in the former structure, which is also ascribed to the larger effective \Delta E_c. The Capacitance--Voltage (C-V) carrier density profiles at different temperatures are measured for two Schottky diodes on the considered heterostructure samples separately, showing obviously different 2DEG densities. And the temperature-dependent tendency of the experimental curves agrees well with our calculations.     

Sodium beta-alumina thin films as gate dielectrics for A1GaN/GaN metal-insulator-semiconductor high-electron-mobility transistors

<正>Sodium beta-alumina（SBA） is deposited on AlGaN/GaN by using a co-deposition process with sodium and Al₂O₃ as the precursors.The X-ray diffraction（XRD） spectrum reveals that the deposited thin film is amorphous.The binding energy and composition of the deposited thin film,obtained from the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy（XPS） measurement,are consistent with those of SBA.The dielectric constant of the SBA thin film is about 50.Each of the capacitance-voltage characteristics obtained at five different frequencies shows a high-quality interface between SBA and AlGaN.The interface trap density of metal-insulator-semiconductor high-electron-mobility transistor（MISHEMT） is measured to be（3.5～9.5）×10¹⁰ cm^-2·eV^-1 by the conductance method.The fixed charge density of SBA dielectric is on the order of 2.7×10¹² cm^-2.Compared with the AlGaN/GaN metal-semiconductor heterostructure high-electronmobility transistor（MESHEMT）,the AlGaN/GaN MISHEMT usually has a threshold voltage that shifts negatively. However,the threshold voltage of the AlGaN/GaN MISHEMT using SBA as the gate dielectric shifts positively from—5.5 V to—3.5 V.From XPS results,the surface valence-band maximum（VBM-E_F） of AlGaN is found to decrease from 2.56 eV to 2.25 eV after the SBA thin film deposition.The possible reasons why the threshold voltage of AlGaN/GaN MISHEMT with the SBA gate dielectric shifts positively are the influence of SBA on surface valence-band maximum （VBM-E_F）,the reduction of interface traps and the effects of sodium ions,and/or the fixed charges in SBA on the two-dimensional electron gas（2DEG）.     

Electron g-factor in a gated InAs-inserted-channel In0.53Ga0.47As/In0.52Al0.48As heterostructure

We report on electron g-factor in an InAs-inserted In_0.53Ga_0.47As/In_0.52Al_0.48As heterostructure. The gate voltage dependence of g-factor is obtained from the coincidence method. The obtained g-factor values are surprisingly smaller than the g-factor value of bulk InAs, and it is close to the bare g-factor value of In_0.53Ga_0.47As. The large change in g-factor is observed by applying the gate voltage. The obtained gate voltage dependence is not simply explained by the energy dependence of g-factor.