Charge Carrier Confinement in Acoustic GaAs/AlxGa1-xAs Multiple Quantum Wells Using Transient Grating Spectroscopy

Quantum confinement of carriers in semiconductors is at the heart of next generation technologies. We produce lateral 2D and 3D carrier confinement in polar III-V semiconductor quantum wells by shear strain and dilatation generated by the phonon pulses that vary with depth below the sample surface. This locally deforms the valence and conduction bands. We grew a GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure containing three distinctly sized quantum wells. We verify confinement and transport using transient grating spectroscopy on the surface of the sample to generate and detect surface acoustic phonons. Ultrahigh frequency acoustic phonons will enable correlation of carrier lifetime luminescence and confinement