Electric field effect on the intersubband optical absorption of GeSn quantum wells with parabolically graded barriers

Abstract

In this study, we propose a theoretical simulation of a Ge0.9Sn0.1 rectangular SQW with GeSn parabolically graded barriers (PGBs) in the terahertz (THz) region. The discrete intra-band confined energy levels and their matching wave functions were calculated by solving the sta tionary Schrodinger ¨ equation by the finite difference method taking into account the Compact Density Matrix approach under the framework of both the effective mass and the envelope wave function approximations. In this work, we studied the effect of the quantum square-well width on the intersubband transition and oscillator strength in a GeSn-strained-based Barrier-Well-Barrier GeSn/(Ge,α-Sn) PGBs to obtain the optimum quantum confinement of electrons. The electronic states and their wave functions in the conduction band were computed by solving the Schrodinger ¨ equation without and under the effect of an applied external electric field at room temperature. We then investigated the effect of the electric field on the optical absorption coefficient (OAC). Our numerical results show that for external fields (>15 kV/cm), an intersubband transitions (ISBTs) frequency band of 2–14 THz (8–58 meV) was obtained for the specific optimized pa rameters. These results should be beneficial to the design of devices based on GeSn QWs with PGB structures operating in the THz frequency range.