S-shaped current bistability in a bipolar resonant tunneling diode

The bipolar tunneling transport through p–i–n double barrier structures has been studied by means of simultaneous electrical transport measurements and electroluminescence spectroscopy. An “inverted” hysteresis loop is observed at the onset of the first electronic resonance in the current–voltage characteristics with an electrical ON/OFF ratio of more than two orders of magnitude. Relating the different branches of the current–voltage characteristic to the space charges accumulated throughout the structure the inverted hysteresis loop is interpreted in terms of an S-shaped current bistability. The S-shaped current bistability is similar to the current driven negative differential resistivity as known for instance from thyristor action. This analogy between the bipolar double barrier structure with alloyed n-type emitter and the thyristor will be briefly discussed.     

The observation of electroluminescence in a double barrier resonant tunnelling structure

Electroluminescence (EL) and impact ionisation phenomena in an asymmetric double barrier resonant tunnelling structure are investigated. Determination of the charge density and electric field distribution throughout the structure enables a detailed analysis of impact ionisation phenomena to be made.     

High temperature gate control of quantum well spin memory

Time-resolved optical measurements in (110)-oriented GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells show a tenfold increase of the spin-relaxation rate as a function of applied electric field from 20 to 80 kV cm(-1) at 170 K and indicate a similar variation at 300 K, in agreement with calculations based on the Rashba effect. Spin relaxation is almost field independent below 20 kV cm(-1) reflecting quantum well interface asymmetry. The results indicate the achievability of a voltage-gateable spin-memory time longer than 3 ns simultaneously with a high electron mobility.     

Saturation absorption studies of intersubband relaxation rates in a p-GaAs/AlGaAs QW using a free electron laser

We present saturation absorption studies of the HH1→LH1 intersubband transition in a 70 Å p-type GaAs/AlGaAs multi-quantum well. The subband separation in this sample, with strongly non-parabolic bands, varies from 26 meV at k=0 to 16 meV at the Fermi wave vector. The absorption behaviour of this transition is studied over a range of four orders of magnitude of intensity of incident THz radiation. The results are analysed within the contexts of a simple two-level model and an instantaneous thermalization model. The results indicate that the lifetime obtained with these models is limited by the pulsewidth, i.e. is greater than 1.7 ps. This places a lower limit on the energy relaxation time for transitions below the LO-phonon energy.     

Observation of the low-temperature peak in the interlayer tunneling conductance in bilayer electron systems in the absence of the magnetic field

A high narrow peak in the interlayer differential tunnel conductance has been observed in heterostructures with two closely located electron layers at low temperatures. Analysis of the experimental results suggests that this peak is due to the interlayer phase coherence, which appears in the system under investigation owing to the Bose condensation of indirect excitons, i.e., pairs of electrons and holes from different layers in the absence of the magnetic field.