Hydrostatic pressure investigations of resonant tunnelling through X-minimum-related states in a single barrier GaAs/AlAs/GaAs heterostructure

Abstract

We have investigated the resonant tunnelling of electrons through X-valley related states in a single AlAs barrier with Si donor & doping. Under high hydrostatic pressure all the peaks observed in the differential conductance-voltage (σ-V) characteristics shift with a pressure rate of -lSmeV/kbar, which is expected for X-minima related electronic states.     

Interface-related effects on confined excitons in GaAs/AlxGa1−xAs single quantum wells

Confined excitons in non-abrupt GaAs/Al_xGa_1−xAs single quantum wells are studied. The graded interfaces are described taking into account fluctuations in their thickness a and positioning with respect to the abrupt interface picture. Numerical results for confined (0,0),(1,1) and (0,2) excitons in GaAs/Al_0.3Ga_0.7As quantum wells show that while the interfacial fluctuations produce small changes (<0.5 meV) in the exciton binding energies, the confined exciton energies can be red- or blue-shifted as much as 25 meV for wells with mean width of 50 Å and 2 ML wide interfaces.     

Raman response of GaAs/AlAs superlattices with AlxGa1−xAs intralayers

We present a theoretical investigation on the effects induced on the Raman spectra of a binary (001) GaAs/AlAs superlattice by an intentionally deposited ternary Al_xGa_1−xAs intralayer. We investigate how the intralayer chemical composition and position affect the GaAs-like response of the host system.     

Oscillator strength of type-II light-hole exciton in InxGa1−xAs/GaAs strained single quantum wells

We have investigated the excitonic properties of In_0.15Ga_0.85As/GaAs strained single quantum wells by using photoreflectance spectroscopy and a variational calculation method. We clearly detected the photoreflectance signal of the type-II light-hole exciton, which consists of an electron confined in the InGaAs layer and a light hole located in the thick GaAs layer, in addition to the type-I heavy-hole exciton confined in the InGaAs layer. The calculated results of the overlap integral of the envelope function in the type-II light-hole exciton predict that the oscillator strength is remarkably enhanced with decreasing the InGaAs-layer thickness. This is demonstrated by the layer-thickness dependence of the photoreflectance intensity of the type-II light-hole exciton.     

Screening influence on the Stark effect of impurity states in strained wurtzite GaN/AlxGa1-xN heterojunctions under pressure

The screening effect of the random-phase-approximation on the states of shallow donor impurities in free strained wurtzite GaN/Al x Ga 1 x N heterojunctions under hydrostatic pressure and an external electric field is investigated by using a variational method and a simplified coherent potential approximation.The variations of Stark energy shift with electric field,impurity position,Al component and areal electron density are discussed.Our results show that the screening dramatically reduces both the blue and red shifts as well as the binding energies of impurity states.For a given impurity position,the change in binding energy is more sensitive to the increase in hydrostatic pressure in the presence of the screening effect than that in the absence of the screening effect.The weakening of the blue and red shifts,induced by the screening effect,strengthens gradually with the increase of electric field.Furthermore,the screening effect weakens the mixture crystal effect,thereby influencing the Stark effect.The screening effect strengthens the influence of energy band bending on binding energy due to the areal electron density.     

Influence of spacer layer thickness on the current-voltage characteristics of pseudomorphic AlAs/In0.53Ga0.47As/InAs resonant tunnelling diodes

This paper investigates the dependence of current voltage characteristics of AlAs/In0.53Ga0.47As/InAs resonant tunnelling diodes （RTDs） on spacer layer thickness. It finds that the peak and the valley current density J in the negative differential resistance （NDR） region depends strongly on the thickness of the spacer layer. The measured peak to valley current ratio of RTDs studied here is shown to improve while the current density through RTDs decreases with increasing spacer layer thickness below a critical value.     

Fractal dimension study of polaron effects in cylindrical GaAs/AlxGa1−xAs core–shell nanowires

Polaron effects in cylindrical GaAs/Al_xGa_1−xAs core–shell nanowires are studied by applying the fractal dimension method. In this paper, the polaron properties of GaAs/AlxGa1-xAs core–shell nanowires with different core radii and aluminum concentrations are discussed. The polaron binding energy, polaron mass shift, and fractal dimension parameter are numerically determined as functions of shell width. The calculation results reveal that the binding energy and mass shift of the polaron first increase and then decrease as the shell width increases. A maximum value appears at a certain shell width for different aluminum concentrations and a given core radius. By using the fractal dimension method, polaron problems in cylindrical GaAs/Al_xGa_1-xAs core–shell nanowires are solved in a simple manner that avoids complex and lengthy calculations.     

Tuning of long-wavelength emission in InxGa1−xAs quantum dot structures

This work explores the conditions to obtain the extension of the PL emission beyond 1.3 μm in InGaAs quantum dot (QD) structures growth by MOCVD. We found that, by controlling the In incorporation in the barrier embedding the QDs, the wavelength emission can be continuously tuned from 1.25 μm up to 1.4 μm at room temperature. However, the increase in the overall strain of the structures limits the possibility to increase the maximum gain in the QD active device, where an optical density as high as possible is required. By exploring the kinetics of QD surface reconstruction during the GaAs overgrowth, we are able to obtain, for the first time, emission beyond 1.3 μm from InGaAs QDs grown on GaAs matrix. The wavelength is tuned from 1.26 μm up to 1.33 μm and significant improvements in terms of line shape narrowing and room temperature efficiency are obtained. The temperature-dependent quenching of the emission efficiency is reduced down to a factor of 3, the best value ever reported for QD structures emitting at 1.3 μm.     

Spacer layer thickness fluctuation scattering in a modulation-doped AlxGa1-xAs/GaAs/AlxGa1-xAs quantum well

We theoretically study the influence of spacer layer thickness fluctuation（SLTF） on the mobility of a twodimensional electron gas（2DEG） in the modulation-doped Al x Ga 1 x As/GaAs/Al x Ga 1 x As quantum well.The dependence of the mobility limited by SLTF scattering on spacer layer thickness and donor density are obtained.The results show that SLTF scattering is an important scattering mechanism for the quantum well structure with a thick well layer.     

Pressure effect on the electron mobility in AlAs/GaAs quantum wells

By taking the influence of optical phonon modes into account, this paper adopts the dielectric continuum phonon model and force balance equation to investigate the electronic mobility parallel to the interfaces for AlAs/GaAs semiconductor quantum wells (QWs) under hydrostatic pressure. The scattering from confined phonon modes, interface phonon modes and half-space phonon modes are analysed and the dominant scattering mechanisms in wide and narrow QWs are presented. The temperature dependence of the electronic mobility is also studied in the temperature range of optical phonon scattering being available. It is shown that the electronic mobility reduces obviously as pressure increases from 0 to 4GPa, the confined longitudinal optical (LO) phonon modes play an important role in wide QWs, whereas the interface optical phonon modes are dominant in narrow QWs, the half-space LO phonon modes hardly influence the electronic mobility expect for very narrow QWs.     

GaAs/AlxGa1-xAs球形量子点中的电子结构

详细讨论了GaAs/Al_xGa_1-xAs球形量子点内的单电子束缚能级随量子点半径、Al组分以及外电场的变化规律，并计算了考虑量子点内外电子有效质量不同后对电子能级的修正. 另外，用解析和平面波展开两种方法对球形量子点内的电子能级进行了计算，并对计算结果做了比较，发现它们符合的很好. 结论和方法为量子点的研究和应用提供了有益的信息和指导.     

GaAs/AlxGa1-xAs球形量子点中的电子结构

详细讨论了GaAs/Al_xGa_1-xAs球形量子点内的单电子束缚能级随量子点半径、Al组分以及外电场的变化规律,并计算了考虑量子点内外电子有效质量不同后对电子能级的修正. 另外,用解析和平面波展开两种方法对球形量子点内的电子能级进行了计算,并对计算结果做了比较,发现它们符合的很好. 结论和方法为量子点的研究和应用提供了有益的信息和指导. 关键词： 球形量子点 解析方法 平面波展开方法 有效质量     

Valuing of the critical layer thickness from the deading time constant of RHEED oscillation in the case of InxGa1−xAs/GaAs heterojunction

In this work, we have looked for the correlation between the observed decay of reflection high-energy electron diffraction intensity oscillation and the critical layer thickness in the case of strained In_xGa_1−xAs/GaAs heterojunctions. The value of deading time constant of oscillation depends on the mismatch and on growth parameters, too. The decay of oscillation was described by two deading time constants which are responsible for the influences of the parameters mentioned above. The critical layer thickness was valued from the deading time constant responsible for the influence of mismatch only. The critical layer thickness determined this way shows good agreement with the theoretical model.     

Hydrostatic pressure effects on impurity states in GaAs/AlAs quantum wells

Within the framework of effective-mass approximation, we have studied the effects of hydrostatic pressure on the binding energy of a shallow donor impurity in an infinite quantum well by means of a variational method. It is found that the first derivative of the binding energy and energy shift is reliable parameter for describing the structure.     

Effect of strain on multisubband electron transport in GaAs/InxGa1-xAs coupled quantum well structures

We analyze the strain induced changes in the low temperature multisubband electron mobility mediated through the intersubband interactions in a pseudomorphic GaAs/In_xGa_1−xAs coupled double quantum well structure. We consider the non-phonon scattering mechanisms and study the effect of strain on them. We show that strain reduces the mobility due to ionized impurity (imp-) scattering μ^imp but enhances the mobility due to interface roughness (IR-) scattering μ^IR. For alloy disorder (AL-) scattering as long as the lowest subband is occupied, the effect of strain enhances the mobility μ^AL. However, once the second subband is occupied, there is almost no change, rather decrease in μ^AL for larger well widths. It is gratifying to note that for single subband occupancy, the effect of strain enhances the total mobility μ. On the other hand, for double subband occupancy, initially there is almost no change, but with increase in well width the total mobility reduces. We vary the In composition x from 0.15 to 0.2 and 0.25 and the barrier width between the two wells to analyze their effects on the mobility which shows interesting results. Our study of multisubband mobility can be utilized for the low temperature device applications.     

Franz–Keldysh oscillations at the miniband edge in a GaAs/AlxGa1 −xAs superlattice

We have systematically measured the electroreflectance spectra of a GaAs (7.0 nm)/Al_0.1Ga_0.9As (3.5 nm) superlattice at various electric fields to investigate Franz–Keldysh (FK) oscillations. In the low-field regime, we clearly observe the FK oscillations toward the low-energy side of theM₁critical point (mini-Brillouin-zone edge). As the electric field is increased, the direction of the FK oscillations is reversed, then the oscillations disappear. The change of the oscillation direction correlates with the transformation of the electronic structures from the miniband to the Stark-ladder states in the Wannier-Stark localization. We discuss these experimental results on the basis of a theory of the FK oscillations and envelope-function forms calculated by a transfer matrix method with Airy functions.     

Pressure studies of conduction-band N-pair-state mixing in dilute GaAs1−xNx alloys

High-pressure photoluminescence (PL) experiments (at 9 K) are reported for GaAs_1−xN_x/GaAs quantum wells having N compositions (x=0.0025, 0.004) in the dilute regime where the GaAs_1−xN_x alloy conduction band (CB) evolves rapidly by incorporation of N-pair states. Under increasing pressure, the PL spectra exhibit several new N-pair features that derive from CB-resonant states at 1 atm. Two of these features appear strongly at sub-band-gap energies for P29 kbar in the x=0.0025 sample, but are absent for all pressures in the x=0.004 sample. Several competing PL assignments due to bound-exciton recombination at NN_i pairs (i=1–4 is the anion separation) are considered in light of prior findings for N-doped (10¹⁷ cm⁻³) GaAs. The absence of certain PL features in the x=0.004 sample shows that N-pair states mix into the CB-continuum via a selective process, and this selectivity offers an important test for band-structure calculations in dilute GaAs_1−xN_x alloys.     

Sn1-xGexTe的高温高压合成及热电性能

在众多热电材料中,SnTe具有与PbTe相同的晶体结构且不含重金属Pb,近年来引起了人们的广泛关注。目前,本征SnTe的热电性能并不特别优异,存在以下问题:大量本征Sn空位导致载流子浓度过高,从而降低了电输运性能;价带中的轻带与重带能量劈裂较大,且带隙过窄,不利于通过重带参与电运输提高Seebeck系数;晶格热导率较大。利用高温高压方法快速合成了Ge掺杂的SnTe合金,系统研究了不同Ge含量对SnTe的微观结构和热电性能的影响。结果表明:Ge掺杂能够有效地调控SnTe材料的电运输性能;Ge掺杂使样品的微观结构发生变化,样品晶粒细化,且析出纳米第二相,晶界和纳米相对声子的散射作用降低了热导率;样品Ge_0.2Sn_0.8Te在700 K时的热电优值达到0.35。     

Simultaneous effects of hydrostatic pressure and applied electric field on the impurity-related self-polarization in GaAs/Ga1−xAlxAs multiple quantum wells

A detailed theoretical study of the combined effects of hydrostatic pressure and in-growth direction applied electric field on the binding energy and self-polarization of a donor impurity in a system of GaAs-(Ga,Al)As coupled square quantum wells is presented. The study is performed in the framework of the effective mass and parabolic band approximations and using a variational procedure. The electron effective mass, the dielectric constant, the barrier height, the well sizes, all them varying with the hydrostatic pressure are taken into account within the study. The results obtained show that the impurity binding energy and its self-polarization bear strong dependencies with the hydrostatic pressure, the strength of the applied electric field, the width of the confining potential barriers, and the impurity position.