Advanced Semiconductor Materials

Quantum Wells, Quantum Wires and Quantum

Dots

Need for low dimensional structures

Carrier confinement
Ballistic transport => High performance transistors and lasers
Elastic scattering: Energy does not change between collisions
Inelastic scattering: Energy changes with collision
Ballistic transport: At low enough dimensions (< average distance between two elastic scattering),
electrons travel in straight lines => Light beams in geometrical optics

Outline
Quantum wells (Well with finite potential)
Quantum wires
Quantum dots

Sebastian Lourdudoss
 PARTICLE IN AN
INFINITE WELL

Consider first the particle trapped in

an infinitely deep one- dimensional
potential well with a specific dimension
Observations
• Energy is quantized, Even the lowest
energy level has a positive value and
not zero
• The probability of finding the particle
is restricted to the respective energy
levels only and not in-between
• Classical E-p curve is continuous. In
quantum mechanics, p = ħk with k =
nπ/l where n = ±1, ±2, ±3 etc.
En = ħ2k2/2m
= n2 π2 ħ2/2ml2
In fact the negative values are not
counted since the probability of finding
the electrons in n=1 and n=-1 is the
same and also E is the same at these
values
• When l is large, energies at En and
En+1 move closer to each other =>
classical systems, energy is continuous.
Sebastian Lourdudoss
 PARTICLE IN A FINITE WELL

Observations
• The wave functions are not
zero at the boundaries as in
the infinite potential well
• Allowed particle energies
depend on the well depth
Infinite well
•Finite well energy levels <
Finite well
corresponding infinite well
energy levels
Energy levels and wave functions
• The deeper the finite well, in a one dimensional finite well.
the better the infinite well Three bound solutions are
approximation for the low- illustrated
lying energy values
• Quantum mechanical
tunnelling possible a) Shallow well with single allowed
• Quantum mechanical level kl = π/4
reflection possible at E>V0 N.B: k2 = 2mE/ħ2
b) Increase of allowed levels as kl
exceeds π; here kl = 3π + π/4
c) Comparison of the finite-well (solid
line) and infinite well (dashed line)
energies; here kl = 8π + π/4
Sebastian Lourdudoss
 ENERGY LEVELS IN A FINITE WELL IN TERMS OF
THE FIRST LEVEL OF INFINITE WELL

• For infinite well case, En = n2 E1∞ (12)

where E1∞ = ħ2k12/2m (13)
= π2 ħ2/2ml2 (14)
• Can we arrive at a similar relation for the
finite well case? YES
How?
Solve (10) and (11) using (12) with (3) & (5):

Quantum number in the quantum well:

nQW = (En/E1∞)½ (15)
Maximum number of bound states:
nmax = (V0/ E1∞)½ (16)

Example:
V0 = 25E1∞ => From (16), nmax = 5
(If necessary, round up to the nearest integer)
nQW = 0.886, 1.77, 2.65, 3.51, 4.33 from figure

From Coldren and Corzine,

Diode lasers and photonic
Plot of quantum numbers as a function of the maximum allowed
integrated circuits, Wiley, quantum number which is determined by the potential height V0
1995
Sebastian Lourdudoss
 RELATION BETWEEN ENERGY LEVELS IN A FINITE
WELL WITH THE FIRST LEVEL OF INFINITE WELL

Example:
V0 = 25E1∞ => From (16), nmax = 5
nQW = 0.886, 1.77, 2.65, 3.51, 4.33 from the
figure

Some figures:
• The energy spacing between the energy levels for
the quantum wells with thickness ~10 nm is a few
10’s to a few 100’s meV
• At room temperature kT ~ 26 meV. This means
only the first energy levels can be occupied by
electrons under typical device operational
conditions

From Coldren and Corzine,

Diode lasers and photonic Plot of quantum numbers as a function of the maximum allowed
quantum number which is determined by the potential height V0
integrated circuits, Wiley,
1995 Sebastian Lourdudoss
 Bound states as a function of well thickness

 2m V l 
* 2

n = 1 + Int  e


0
max

 π h
2

2

Sebastian Lourdudoss
 Optical absorption/emission in the quantum wells

ћ𝟐𝟐 𝝅𝝅𝟐𝟐 𝒏𝒏𝟐𝟐𝒊𝒊 ћ𝟐𝟐 𝝅𝝅𝟐𝟐 𝒏𝒏𝟐𝟐𝒊𝒊 ћ𝟐𝟐 𝝅𝝅𝟐𝟐 𝒏𝒏𝟐𝟐𝒊𝒊 𝟏𝟏 𝟏𝟏

𝑬𝑬𝑪𝑪𝒊𝒊 − 𝑬𝑬𝑽𝑽𝒊𝒊 = 𝑬𝑬𝑪𝑪 + − 𝑬𝑬𝑽𝑽 − = 𝑬𝑬𝒈𝒈 + +
𝟐𝟐𝒎𝒎∗𝒆𝒆 𝒍𝒍𝟐𝟐 𝟐𝟐𝒎𝒎∗𝒉𝒉 𝒍𝒍𝟐𝟐 𝟐𝟐𝒍𝒍𝟐𝟐 𝒎𝒎𝒆𝒆∗ 𝒎𝒎𝒉𝒉∗

𝟏𝟏 𝟏𝟏 𝟏𝟏
∗ = + ∗ meh* = optical effective mass
𝒎𝒎𝒆𝒆𝒆𝒆 𝒎𝒎𝒆𝒆∗ 𝒎𝒎𝒉𝒉

Sebastian Lourdudoss
Density of states in the low dimensional
structures

Lower the dimension greater

the density of states near the
band edge
=> Greater proportion of the
injected carriers contribute to
the band edge population
inversion and gain (in lasers)

Sebastian Lourdudoss
Quantum wires

Sebastian Lourdudoss
 Quantum dots

• Quantization in all the three directions

• With a finite potential, the problem can be treated as a spherical
dot like an atom of radius R with a surrounding potential
V (r) = 0 for r ≤ R and
= Vb for r ≥ R Here r is the co-ordinate
• The solutions resemble those for the spectra of atoms
• Total number of states
* 3/ 2
( 2m V ) L L L
N = e b x y z

3π h
t 2 3

Sebastian Lourdudoss
 Courtesy: W.Seifert
Sebastian Lourdudoss
 Heterogeneous three
dimensional nucleation

a = ambient
s = substrate
n = nucleus

From: Udo W. Pohl, Epitaxy of Semiconductors, Introduction of Physical Principles,

Springer, Heidelberg, 2013, ch. 4
S.Lourdudoss 13
 Growth Modes For the first layer

and later

From: Udo W. Pohl, Epitaxy of Semiconductors, Introduction of Physical Principles,

Springer, Heidelberg, 2013, ch. 4
S.Lourdudoss 14
 Quantum wire and dot fabrication

Coupled QWRs -Evidence for

tunneling and electronic coupling
shown - Wire is GaAs, barrirer is
Formed from reorganisation of a
AlGaAs
sequence of AlGaAs and strained
InGaAs epitaxial films grown on
From GaAs (311)B substrates by MOCVD.
http://www.ifm.liu.se/Matephys/AAnew/research/iii_v/qwr.htm#S1.7
The size of the quantum dots are as
small as 20 nm
Sebastian Lourdudoss
Nanorods

Courtesy: W.Seifert
Sebastian Lourdudoss
Sebastian Lourdudoss
 Side-view scanning electron microscopy (SEM) image showing NW LEDs.
The scale bar is 1 μm.
Left inset: sketch drawing of the device structure. Right inset: side-view CCD
camera image showing electroluminescence (EL) from a single NW LED
structure.

C P T Svensson et al, Nanotechnology 19 (2008) 305201

Sebastian Lourdudoss
 Etched Quantum Dots By E-Beam Lithography

GaAs
AlGaAs QW
AlGaAs
GaAs

• E-beam lithography used for

Au-liftoff etch mask • SiCl4/SiF4 RIE etch

• Mask size =15-22 nm • Dot Size= 15-25 nm

• Dot Density = 3x1010cm-2
• Etched dots have poor optical quality
• Dot density is low
• Device applications require regrowth Courtesy: P.Bhattacharya,
University of Michigan
Sebastian Lourdudoss
 History of Heterostructure Lasers

1000000
DHS - Diode Heterostructure
Threshold Current Density (A/cm2)

QW - Quantum Well
GaAs pn QD - Quantum Dot
100000 QW Miller et. al.

T=300K
10000
DHS
QW Dupuis et. al.
Alferov
et. al. QD Kamath et. al.
1000
DHS QW Mirin et. al.
Alferov et. al. Shoji et. al.
QW Tsang
Hayashi et. al.
100
QD Ledenstov et. al.
QW Alferov et. al. QD Liu et. al.
Chand et. al.
10
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Courtesy:
Year
P.Bhattacharya,
University of
Michigan
Sebastian Lourdudoss
InAs QD/GaAs/Ge on Si

UCSB: Liu et al, APL, 2014 25