Carrier kinetics and population inversion in Landau level system in cascade GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well structures

The carrier distribution over Landau levels was studied in resonant tunneling GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well structures under tunneling pumping of the upper subband. The numerical calculations of the Landau levels population for various values of pumping intensity (tunneling time), magnetic field and the structure doping were carried out. The effect of various scattering mechanisms, as two-electron (electron–electron scattering) as single-electron (acoustic phonon and interface roughness scattering) ones on level population was studied. The population inversion between the zeroth Landau level of the upper subband and the first Landau level of the lowest subband was shown to exist in wide range of the magnetic field strength thus providing the possibility of wide range tunable stimulated terahertz emission.     

Carrier dynamics and stimulated radiative terahertz transitions between Landau levels in cascade GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well structures

The carrier distribution over Landau levels was studied in resonant tunneling GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well structures under tunneling pumping of the upper subband. The numerical calculations of the Landau level populations for various values of pumping intensity (tunneling time), magnetic field and structure doping were carried out. The population inversion between zeroth Landau level of the upper subband and the first Landau level of the lowest subband was shown to exist in wide range of the magnetic field strength. The effect of various scattering mechanisms, both two-particle (electron-electron scattering) and single-particle (acoustic phonon and interface roughness scattering) ones, on level population was studied. The way of lifting the selection rule forbidding the inter-Landau level terahertz transitions of interest and achieving considerable values of the dipole matrix element is proposed.     

Negative FIR-photoconductivity in n-GaAs

Negative photoconductivity in n-GaAs has been observed in the far infrared spectral range between 20 and 29 cm^–1. Negative photoconductivity occurs when a magnetic field is applied to the samples and impact ionization of shallow donors by the electric bias field is the dominant mechanism of electron excitation to the conduction band. A conceivable model qualitatively explaining the experimental results is proposed, which involves optical transitions from the lowest Landau subband to higher bound states of shallow donors.     

Mechanism of energy relaxation in the system of Landau levels in quantum wells

The kinetics of intersubband relaxation of electron energy has been studied in the system of Landau levels lying below the optical phonon energy. The relaxation character in the considered system is revealed to differ qualitatively from that in the two-dimensional continuous subband of the quantum well. In particular, the mechanisms of electron subsystem thermalization and energy relaxation in the system of Landau levels are qualitatively different, and the electron subsystem relaxation time exceeds the thermalization time by several orders of magnitude.     

Magneto-transport study of Landau level broadening in a gated AlGaAs/GaAs parabolic quantum well structure

We study the Landau level broadening by analyzing the Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations in a gated AlGaAs/GaAs parabolic quantum well structure when only one electronic subband is occupied. Small-angle scattering is determined to be important in this system. The Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations are described equally well by employing Gaussian or Lorentzian broadening of the Landau levels at low magnetic field where the quantum localization effect is not important. A possible explanation is that the electron-electron interactions lead to the overlapping of adjacent Landau levels and one can not distinguish between the two broadening types.     

Energy relaxation of magnetically confined electrons in quantum cascade lasers

By measuring the light emitted from a quantum cascade laser placed in a high magnetic field, we have investigated the energy relaxation of 0D magnetically confined electrons in the active quantum wells of the structure. The experiment consists of injecting electrons by tunnelling into one upper subband level and monitoring a resonant interaction with optical phonons produced by Landau tuning of subband energy levels. For this purpose, the upper level lifetime is probed by measuring the laser intensity as a function of magnetic field, under constant current bias values. Both the laser intensity and the bias voltage oscillate periodically with the reciprocal of the field. In addition, at high magnetic fields, the current threshold goes through deep minima at antiresonance values. The lifetime is then deduced and analyzed using the strong electron–phonon coupling scheme which is typically applied to quantum dots.     

Polarization dependence of Fano resonances in impurity photoconductivity of quantum wells doped with shallow donors

The spectrum of impurity photoabsorption of a heterostructure with quantum wells doped with shallow donors has been calculated in the energy range close to the optical phonon energy. It has been shown that the resonant feature of photoconductivity (Fano resonance) caused by the interaction of electrons with polar optical phonons depends strongly on radiation polarization when the resonance state energy is higher than the energy of the bottom of the second quantum-well subband. This dependence on polarization has been experimentally revealed in the impurity photoconductivity spectrum of the AlGaAs/GaAs heterostructure.     

磁场下超晶格的子带结构及光跃迁

用有效质量方法计算了磁场下超晶格的子带结构和光跃迁。详细地介绍了计算方法,计算了磁能级的能量随磁场和阱宽的变化。发现随磁场和阱宽的增加,轻空穴态的混入就越显著,只有最低的三个重空穴态还基本保持原来的特性。计算中还发现第三轻空穴带对得到收敛的解是必不可少的。最后讨论了磁光跃迁几率和迴旋共振的有效质量。 关键词：     

Magnetic levels in superlattices

A magnetic field parallel to the layers of a GaAs---GaAlAs superlattice leads to a quantisation of the subband dispersion relation. The discrete energy levels are calculated with a semiclassical quantisation scheme and it is shown that within the energy width of the subbands, closed orbits, and in the superlattice minigap open orbits, are formed. Experimentally this behaviour is observed as sharp peaks in the interband Landau level absorption for energies within the subband width (closed orbits) and the disappearance of these peaks at higher energies (where no closed orbits exist).     

Evolution of the 7/2 fractional quantum Hall state in two-subband systems

We report the evolution of the fractional quantum Hall state (FQHS) at a total Landau level (LL) filling factor of ν=7/2 in wide GaAs quantum wells in which electrons occupy two electric subbands. The data reveal subtle and distinct evolutions as a function of density, magnetic field tilt angle, or symmetry of the charge distribution. At intermediate tilt angles, for example, we observe a strengthening of the ν=7/2 FQHS. Moreover, in a well with asymmetric change distribution, there is a developing FQHS when the LL filling factor of the symmetric subband ν(S) equals 5/2 while the antisymmetric subband has a filling factor of 1<ν(A)<2.     

Edge state equilibration in a two-subband system

In order to honor Jörg Kotthaus, I present unpublished experimental results which were obtained in 1994 when I was a postdoc in Munich.The scattering between edge states in the quantum Hall regime is strongly reduced compared to scattering in the bulk of a two-dimensional electron gas. For edge states with different Landau quantum numbers an equilibration length as long as 100μm has been determined. In the case of Landau levels with different spin quantum numbers this length may reach values of 1 mm. Here we set out to explore the equilibration between edge states with different subband quantum numbers. Using parabolic quantum wells as a tunable multi-subband system we find that intersubband scattering can reduce the equilibration length to values below 5μm.     

Mid-infrared intersubband emission from optically pumped asymmetric coupled quantum wells

Mid-infrared optical emission due to intersubband transitions between excited conduction subbands of a coupled quantum well structure is studied. The emission process is based on optical pumping of free carriers from the ground subband into the third subband followed by a radiative transition from the third subband into the second subband and a fast phonon assisted relaxation into the ground subband. We have observed spontaneous emission at 14 μm that persists up to room temperature. Our results indicate that population inversion between conduction subbands and large stimulated gain can be achieved.     

Intersubband scattering of cold electrons in a coupled quantum well with subband spacing below

We report measurements of the intersubband scattering rate between the first and second subband in a quantum-well structure with subband spacing (11 meV) smaller than the optical phonon energy. We measure the electron population in the second subband under CW excitation by a far-infrared laser tuned to the intersubband absorption frequency. This allows us to determine the intersubband relaxation rate using detailed balance. These measurements are novel because they are performed at very low excitation densities (I10 μW/cm²). In this regime the heating of the electron gas is negligible, so that the optically excited population in the upper subband greatly exceeds any thermal population induced by laser heating. Therefore, the relaxation rate we measure is controlled by intersubband scattering rather than carrier cooling. At low temperature we obtain an intersubband lifetime of which is power independent below 10⁻¹ W/cm², and approximately temperature independent for lattice temperatures between T=10 and 2.5 K.     

Measurement of the miniband width in a superlattice with interband absorption in a magnetic field parallel to the layers

Interband magnetoabsorption measurements of a superlattice with GaAs/ GaAlAs layers, thin compared to the cyclotron radius, in a magnetic field parallel to the layers show interband Landau level transitions exclusively for radiation energies falling within the hole and the electron subband width. The data are quantitatively explained with energy levels of a Kronig-Penney model in a parallel magnetic field, and permit a direct observation of the superlattice bandwidth.     

外场调控下硼磷烯量子点的电子结构和光学性质研究

采用紧束缚近似方法对锯齿状六边形硼磷烯量子点在平面电场和垂直磁场调控下的电子结构和光学性质进行了研究. 研究表明,硼磷烯量子点作为直接带隙半导体,在无外加电场和磁场作用时,能隙不随尺寸的改变而变化. 在平面电场调控下,能隙随电场强度的增加逐渐减小直至消失,平面电场方向几乎不会对硼磷烯量子点体系产生影响, 且随量子点尺寸的增大,能隙消失所需电场强度逐渐减小. 在垂直磁场调控下,表现为体态的能级在磁场作用下形成朗道能级,而能隙边缘处的朗道能级近似为一个平带,不随磁通量的改变而变化,态密度主要分布于朗道能级处. 另外,垂直磁场作用下的光吸收主要是由朗道能级之间的跃迁引起的.     

Amplification of plasma oscillations in an asymmetric double quantum well

It is shown that the subband population inversion in an asymmetric double quantum well can result in the amplification of optical plasma oscillations.     

Magnetic field effects on the quantum wire energy spectrum and Green's function

We analyze the energy spectrum and propagation of electrons in a quantum wire on a 2D host medium in a normal magnetic field, representing the wire by a 1D Dirac delta function potential which would support just a single subband state in the absence of the magnetic field. The associated Schrödinger Green's function for the quantum wire is derived in closed form in terms of known functions and the Landau quantized subband energy spectrum is examined.     

STRUCTURE STUDY OF MODULATION-DOPED Cd1-xMnxTe: In/CdTe STRAINED LAYER MULTIPLE QUANTUM WELLS

The photomodulated reflectivity (PR) spectroscopy of modulation-doped diluted mag-netic semiconductor Cd_1-xMn_xTe: In/CdTe multiple quantum wells has been measured at 20-300K. Several spectral features associated with intersubband transitions have been found. The band structure of Cd_1-xMn_xTe: In/CdTe has been calculated by the Hartree self-consistent method. The results show that the theory is in agreement with experiments. In addition, an abnormal transition intensity ratio of 22H (the second heavy hole subband to the second electroa subband) to 11H (the first heavy hole subband to the first electron subband) caused by electron filled effect has been reported. At low temperature, a feature associated with Fermi level is observed, which has not been reported before.     

Monotonic growth of interlayer magnetoresistance in strong magnetic field in very anisotropic layered metals

It is shown that the monotonic part of interlayer electronic conductivity strongly decreases in high magnetic field perpendicular to the conducting layers. Only the coherent interlayer tunneling has been considered, and the obtained result strongly contradicts the standard theory. This effect appears in very anisotropic layered quasi-two-dimensional metals, when the interlayer transfer integral is less than the Landau level separation.     

Manifestation of collective effects in polarization-resolved recombination spectra of the completely filled zeroth landau level of two-dimensional electrons

The luminescence spectra due to recombination of two-dimensional electrons with optically excited holes have been studied in a wide range of electron filling factors in the transverse magnetic field. A nonmonotonic filling-factor dependence of the energy splitting between different circular polarizations of photoluminescence from the completely filled zeroth Landau level of electrons has been observed. It has been shown that this dependence is associated with collective (excitonic) effects that appear due to the interaction between electrons from partially occupied upper Landau levels and holes remaining on the zeroth Landau level after recombination.