TY - JOUR
T1 - Interplay of phonon and disorder scattering in semiconductor quantum wells
AU - Thränhardt, A.
AU - Ell, C.
AU - Mosor, S.
AU - Rupper, G.
AU - Khitrova, G.
AU - Gibbs, M.
AU - Koch, W.
N1 - Funding Information:
The Engineering and Physical Research Council is gratefully acknowledged for supporting this work under Grant No. GR/L96837 and for providing S. A. and D. E. L. with research support.
PY - 2003/7/15
Y1 - 2003/7/15
N2 - The interplay of radiative relaxation, structural disorder, and phonon scattering on the quantum-well absorption is studied at the level of a fully microscopic theory. Treating light field, phonon, and disorder coupling quantum mechanically, the theory accurately describes the quantum-well absorption for different degrees of disorder at different temperatures. The results show that disorder, phonon, and radiative broadening are not simply additive. The 1s–exciton resonance deviates from the Lorentzian absorption line shape for narrow linewidths even when only homogeneous broadening is included. Good agreement with experimental absorption measurements on an In0.04Ga0.96As/GaAs quantum-well structure is obtained. It is shown that only a careful evaluation of the comprehensive microscopic model can reliably identify homogeneous and inhomogeneous contributions to the linewidth.
AB - The interplay of radiative relaxation, structural disorder, and phonon scattering on the quantum-well absorption is studied at the level of a fully microscopic theory. Treating light field, phonon, and disorder coupling quantum mechanically, the theory accurately describes the quantum-well absorption for different degrees of disorder at different temperatures. The results show that disorder, phonon, and radiative broadening are not simply additive. The 1s–exciton resonance deviates from the Lorentzian absorption line shape for narrow linewidths even when only homogeneous broadening is included. Good agreement with experimental absorption measurements on an In0.04Ga0.96As/GaAs quantum-well structure is obtained. It is shown that only a careful evaluation of the comprehensive microscopic model can reliably identify homogeneous and inhomogeneous contributions to the linewidth.
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U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevB.68.035316
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevB.68.035316
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85039011290
SN - 1098-0121
VL - 68
JO - Physical Review B - Condensed Matter and Materials Physics
JF - Physical Review B - Condensed Matter and Materials Physics
IS - 11
ER -