Lateral confinement of carriers in ultrathin semiconductor quantum wells
We investigate theoretically the effects of one-dimensional lateral confinement on the electronic states in strained ultrathin quantum wells (QWs). We studied two monolayer (ML) thick InAs/InP (001) QWs containing 3ML thick one-dimensional (wire-like) InAs islands from 2 to 45ML wide, oriented along the ?010? and ?110? directions. Localized (wire) and extended (QW) states are found in the energy spectra of the structures. The wire localization leads to a band-gap reduction and to an increase of the heavy holelight hole splitting. Coupling between extended and localized states is observed at certain wire widths, indicating that these structures cannot be regarded simply as consisting of independent regions with different QW widths.
lateral confinement quantum well electronic structure