Picosecond acoustics in semiconductor quantum wells

Picosecond acoustic phonon pulses are generated with ultrashort laser pulses in a sample containing three GaAs-Al0.3Ga0.7As quantum wells of different thickness. The pump photon energy is tuned through the hh1-e1 transitions of each well (1.44 - 1.64 eV) and the probe photon energy is chosen to allow detection of the phonon pulses at the sample surface (3.06 eV). Transient optical reflectance and phase changes are recorded as a function of the delay time between the pump and probe light pulses using an interferometric technique. The transition between the valence and conduction sublevels of the wells is observed to strongly influence the pump-photon-energy dependence of the acoustic phonon pulse generation. The data are analyzed with a model that relates the carrier wavefunctions in the quantum wells to the acoustic strain through the deformation potential, and the acoustic strain to the transient optical reflectance and phase