Potentials induced by the electron-optical-phonon interaction in a quantum well

The potential induced by the electron-optical-phonon interaction in a quantum well (QW) is investigated by means of the perturbation theory. We consider the interactions of an electron with both bulklike confined longitudinal optical (LO) phonons and four branches of interface optical (IO) phonons. The spatial distributionV _i(z) of the induced potential for QW structures with different heterolayer compositions and different well widths is calculated in detail. The numerical results show that the heterolayer composition of the QW plays an important role in determining the shape ofV _i(z) and that the existence of IO-phonons is important to the electronic states in QWs.