The nature of the electron distribution and the electron-lattice energy relaxation phenomena in all classes of quantum cascade lasers operating in the THz range, namely, resonant-phonon, bound-to-continuum, and interlaced photon-phonon designs are reviewed. Thermalized hot-electron distributions are found in all cases. However, electronic temperatures of individual conduction subband are strongly influenced by the specific quantum design and the actual electron-lattice energy relaxation channels. A wealth of information was obtained both below and above laser threshold from the analysis of micro-probe band-to-band photoluminescence spectra recorded with a spatial resolution of ≈2 μm. The influence of the detailed knowledge of the hot electron distributions on the design of improved THz quantum cascade lasers aiming at high temperature operation will be discussed.
Two samples containing InGaN quantum wells have been grown by metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy on high pressure grown monocrystalline GaN (0001). Different growth temperatures have been used to grow the wells and the barriers. In one of the samples, a low temperature GaN layer (730°C) has been grown on every quantum well before rising the temperature to standard values (900°C). The samples have been investigated by transmission electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. Photoluminescence spectra have been measured as well. The influence of the LT-GaN has been investigated in regard to its influence on the structural and compositional quality of the sample.
The superlattice-in-well structures were grown using a cycled submonolayer AlGaAs/GaAs deposition technique. The optical quality of Al-Ga interdiffusion in AlGaAs/GaAs superlattice was investigated by measuring the photoluminescence of samples grown at temperature from 610°C to 630°C. Results show that Al composition can be modulated under some growth temperature or period. Effect of the growth interrupt in the growth process of superlattice on film optical quality is also discussed. Especially, the role played by the period of superlattice in the process of obtaining high quality film material with low composition is investigated in detail.
This paper reports on theoretical calculations and fabrication by molecular beam epitaxy of wide-gap II-VI heterostructures emitting in the "true" yellow range (560-600 nm) at room temperature. The active region of the structures comprises CdSe quantum dot active layer embedded into a strained Zn_{1-x}Cd_{x}Se (x=0.2-0.5) quantum well surrounded by a Zn(S,Se)/ZnSe superlattice. Calculations of the CdSe/(Zn,Cd)Se/Zn(S,Se) quantum dot-quantum well luminescence wavelength performed using the envelope-function approximation predict rather narrow range of the total Zn_{1-x}Cd_{x}Se quantum well thicknesses (d ≈ 2-4 nm) reducing efficiently the emission wavelength, while the variation of x (0.2-0.5) has much stronger effect. The calculations are in a reasonable agreement with the experimental data obtained on a series of test heterostructures. The maximum experimentally achieved emission wavelength at 300 K is as high as 600 nm, while the intense room temperature photoluminescence has been observed up to λ =590 nm only. To keep the structure pseudomorphic to GaAs as a whole the tensile-strained surrounding ZnS_{0.17}Se_{0.83}/ZnSe superlattice were introduced to compensate the compressive stress induced by the Zn_{1-x}Cd_{x}Se quantum well. The graded-index waveguide laser heterostructure with a CdSe/Zn_{0.65}Cd_{0.35}Se/Zn(S,Se) quantum dot-quantum well active region emitting at λ =576 nm (T=300 K) with the 77 to 300 K intensity ratio of 2.5 has been demonstrated.
The resonance and non-resonance transmission canals of double-barrier resonant tunneling structure are established for the electron-photon system using the exact solution of one-dimensional non-stationary Schrödinger equation expanded into the Fourier range. It is shown that besides the main and satellite, the mixed quasi-stationary states which cause the appearance of specific transmission canals with the properties strongly dependent on the intensity and frequency of electromagnetic field, exist in the nanostructure.
The classification of states based on good quantum numbers for the two-dimensional Coulomb problem is proposed. The first order magnetic energy corrections are calculated using exact field-free analytic solutions of the Dirac equation as a zero-order approximation.
Transmission electron microscopy and photoluminescence studies of quantum well structures related to stacking faults formation in 4H-SiC homoepitaxial layers are reported. The investigated 4H-SiC layers were deposited on 8° misoriented Si-terminated (0001) surface of high quality 4H-SiC substrate. It is found that the planar defects created by direct continuation from the SiC substrates are cubic 3C-SiC stacking faults. These defects are optically active, giving rise to characteristic luminescence band in the spectral range around 2.9 eV, which consist of several emission lines. The observed energy and intensity pattern of this emission is discussed of in terms of single, double and multiple quantum wells formed from neighboring 3C-SiC SF layers embedded in 4H-SiC material.
GaInN/AlInN multiple quantum wells were grown by RF plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy on (0001) GaN/sapphire substrates. The strain-engineering concept was applied to eliminate cracking effect and to improve optical parameters of intersubband structures grown on GaN substrates. The high quality intersubband structures were fabricated and investigated as an active region for applications in high-speed devices at telecommunication wavelengths. We observed the significant enhancement of intersubband absorption with an increase in the barrier thickness. We attribute this effect to the better localization of the second electron level in the quantum well. The strong absorption is very important on the way to intersubband devices designed for high-speed operation. The experimental results were compared with theoretical calculations which were performed within the electron effective mass approximation. A good agreement between experimental data and theoretical calculations was observed for the investigated samples.
Crack free GaInN/AlInN multiple quantum wells were grown by rf plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy on (0001) GaN/sapphire substrates. The strain-engineering concept was applied to eliminate cracking effect for growth of intersubband structures on GaN. Indium contained ternary compounds of barrier and well layers are contrary strained to the substrate material. A series of crack free GaInN/AlInN intersubband structures on (0001) GaN was fabricated and investigated. The assumed composition and layered structure were confirmed by room temperature photoluminescence and X-ray diffraction measurements. The intersubband measurements were done in multipass waveguide geometry by applying direct intersubband absorption and photoinduced intersubband absorption measurements. The optimized structure design contains forty periods of Si-doped GaInN/AlInN quantum wells and exhibits strong intersubband absorption.
We present the results of THz luminescence investigations in structures with Si-doped quantum wells and Be-doped GaAsN layers under strong lateral electric field. The peculiar property of these structures is the presence of resonant impurity states which arise due to dimensional quantization in quantum wells and due to built-in strain in GaAsN epilayers. The experimentally obtained THz emission spectra consist of the lines attributed to intra-center electron transitions between resonant and localized impurity states and to the electron transitions involving the subband states. Absorption of THz radiation and its temperature dependence was also studied in structure with tunnel-coupled quantum wells at equilibrium conditions and under electric field.
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