Influence of phonon emission on intersubband lifetimes in wide GaAs/AlGaAs and Si/SiGe quantum wells
- FOM-Institute Rijnhuizen (Netherlands)
- Heriot-Watt Univ., Edinburgh (United Kingdom); and others
We have previously used the picosecond far-infrared free electron laser FELIX, at Rijnhuizen, to make the first direct excite-probe determination of the intersubband relaxation rate in wide GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells with the subband separation smaller than the optical phonon energy. This measurement yielded short (40ps) lifetimes while acoustic phonon emission occurs on a 200ps scale. This is also in contrast with, among others, saturation measurements of swide wells with the UCSB FEL which gave lifetimes of 600ps. We discuss here the interpretation of the range of published results by calculation of the LO-phonon scattering rate, including the effects of finite electron temperature, T{sub e}. We have shown that relaxation can be dominated by LO-phonon emission even in wide wells, through the high energy tail of the distribution. The rate is very sensitive to T{sub e} between 30-70K, and also to carrier concentration, making it possible to account for the wide variety of published results with a single mechanism. We have extended our measurements to wide Si/SiGe quantum Wells, and find similarly short times (20-30ps). However, in non-polar materials such as SiGe the deformation potential scattering is much weaker and acoustic phonon emission (order 10ps in n-silicon) is expected to dominate.
- Research Organization:
- Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 238891
- Report Number(s):
- BNL-61982-Absts.; CONF-9508156-Absts.; ON: DE96002729; TRN: 96:013384
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 17. international free electron laser conference, New York, NY (United States), 21-25 Aug 1995; Other Information: PBD: [1995]; Related Information: Is Part Of 17th international free electron laser conference and 2nd international FEL users` workshop. Program and abstracts; PB: 300 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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