Heterojunctions

Junctions between different semiconductor materials are

known as heterojunctions.
Optical sources and detectors make extensive use of
heterojunctions in their designs; they are used not only
as active regions but also as contact layers and
waveguiding regions.
It

is

often

advantageous

to

lattice

match

the

semiconductor materials and to make use of graded

Heterojunction Advantages
Junctions between materials of different bandgap create
localized jumps in the energy-band diagram.
A potential-energy discontinuity provides a barrier that
can be useful in preventing selected charge carriers
from entering regions where they are undesired.
This property may be used in a p-n junction, for
example, to reduce the proportion of current carried by
minority carriers, and thus to increase injection
efficiency (see Fig. 16.1-23, FOP).

Heterojunction Advantages
Discontinuities in the energy-band diagram created by two
heterojunctions can be useful for confining charge carriers to a
desired region of space.
For example, a layer of narrow-bandgap material can be
sandwiched between two layers of a wider bandgap material, as
shown in the p-p-n structure illustrated in Fig. 16.1-23, FoP (which
consists of a p-p heterojunction and a p-n heterojunction).
This double-heterostructure (DH) configuration is used effectively
in the fabrication of LEDs, semiconductor optical amplifiers, and
laser diodes.

Heterojunction Advantages
SCs of different bandgap type (direct and indirect) can be used in
the same device to select regions of the structure where light is
emitted. Only SCs of the direct-bandgap type can efficiently emit
light.
SCs of different bandgap can be used in the same device to select
regions of the structure where light is absorbed. SC materials
whose bandgap energy is larger than the photon energy incident
on them will be transparent, acting as a window layer.
Heterojunctions of materials with different refractive indexes can
be used to create photonic structures and optical waveguides that
confine and direct photons.

Quantum-Confined Structures
Heterostructures of thin layers of semiconductor materials can
be grown epitaxially, i.e., as layers of one semiconductor
material over another, by using techniques such as molecularbeam epitaxy (MBE); liquid-phase epitaxy (LPE); and vaporphase epitaxy (YPE), of which common variants are metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) and hydride vaporphase epitaxy (HYPE). Homoepitaxy is the growth of materials
that have the same composition as the substrate whereas
heteroepitaxy is the growth of materials on a substrate of
different composition, whether lattice-matched or not.

Quantum-Confined Structures
When the layer thickness is comparable to, or smaller than,
the de Broglie wavelength of a thermalized electron, the
quantized energy of an electron resident in the layer must be
accommodated, in which case the energy-momentum relation
for a bulk semiconductor material is no longer applicable.
The de Broglie wavelength is expressed as = h/p, where h is
Planck's constant and p is the electron momentum ( = 50 nm
for GaAs). Three structures offer substantial advantages for
use in photonics: quantum wells, quantum wires, and quantum
dots.

Quantum Wells
Quantum well is a potential well with
only discrete energy values.
One technology to create a quantum
well is to confine particles, which
were originally free to move in three
dimensions, to two dimensions, by
forcing them to occupy a planar
region.
The effects of quantum confinement
take place when the quantum well
thickness becomes comparable to
the de Broglie wavelength of the
carriers, leading to energy levels
called "energy subbands", i.e., the

Quantum Wells

Quantum Wells
SC quantum wells are actually three-dimensional
constructs.
In the quantum-well structure shown in Fig. 16.1-24
(FoP), electrons (and holes) are confined in the x
direction to within a distance d1 (the well thickness), but
they extend over much larger dimensions (d2 , d3 >> d1 )
in the plane of the confining layer.
Thus, in the y-z plane, they behave as if they were in
bulk semiconductor.
The electron energy-momentum relation is

Quantum Wells
Since d1 << d2 , d3 , the parameter k1 takes on well-separated discrete values,
whereas k2 and k3 have finely spaced discrete values that may be approximated
as a continuum.
It follows that the energy-momentum relation for electrons in the conduction band
of a quantum well is given by

where k is the magnitude of a two-dimensional k = (k2 , k3) vector in the y-z

plane.
Each quantum number q1 corresponds to a subband whose lowest energy is Ec +
Eq1.
Similar relations apply for the valence band.

Quantum Wells
The
energy-momentum
semiconductor is given by

relation

for

bulk

where k is magnitude of a three-dimensional vector k

= (k1, k2, k3).
The key distinction is that for the quantum well, k1 takes
on well-separated, discrete values.
As a result, the density of states associated with a
quantum-well structure differs from that associated with
bulk material, for which the density of states is
determined from the magnitude of the three-

Quantum Wells

Multiquantum Wells

Multiquantum Wells

Multiquantum Wells
The multiquantum-well structure illustrated in Fig. 13.111 (FoP) consists of ultrathin (2- to 15- nm) layers of
GaAs alternating with thin (20-nm) layers of AIGaAs.
The lowest energy levels are shown schematically in
each of the quantum wells.
The AIGaAs barrier regions can also be made ultrathin
(< 1 nm), in which case the electrons in adjacent wells
can readily couple to each other via quantummechanical tunneling and the discrete energy levels
broaden into miniature bands called minibands.
The material is then called a superlattice structure
because the minibands arise from a lattice that is

Quantum Wires & Quantum Dots

Emission Ranges of III-V

Semiconductors