The Physics of Emission-Recombination in Multiquantum Well Structures

The emission-recombination mechanisms at quantum wells (QWs) have been studied by Impedance Spectroscopy (IS), Deep Level Optical Spectroscopy (DLOS) and Photoconductive gain measurements for different QW thicknesses, barrier widths and applied electric fields. These studies show that those QWs behave as giant two-dimensional traps for which capture rates and emission probabilities are determined. Those measurements explain very satisfactorily the QW detector performances. Particularly, the concept of QW capture velocity is shown to be more relevant than the capture time one. The measured values of capture velocities compare well with the theoretical results on optical phonon mediated transitions from barrier to well states.

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