Elimination of the acoustoelectric domain and increasing of the emission intensity by means of shunting the lateral current in the InGaAs/GaAs heterostructures

TL;DR

This paper presents a technique to neutralize acoustoelectric domains in InGaAs/GaAs heterostructures using a shunting silver film, which enhances emission intensity and stabilizes current during voltage pulses.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method of shunting with a semi-opaque silver film to eliminate acoustoelectric domains and improve emission in heterostructures.

Findings

Shunting prevents current decrease caused by acoustic domains.

Shunting significantly increases band-to-band emission intensity.

The technique stabilizes current oscillations during voltage pulses.

Abstract

There has been experimentally implemented a technique of neutralization of an acoustoelectric domain under the conditions of the lateral transport of charge carriers in strong electric fields in the multilayer InGaAs/GaAs heterostructures with quantum wells. The technique is implemented by means of deposition of a shunting semi opaque silver film on the heterostructure surface between the ohmic contacts. In absence of shunting the domain appearance leads to current decrease, current oscillations and also to a strong decrease of the band-to-band emission during a voltage pulse applied to the sample. The shunting eliminated the current decrease and enabled it to strongly enlarge the band-to-band emission intensity.