Electronic and optical properties of semiconductor quantum wells

In this thesis we study electronic and optical properties of GaAs-AlGaAs semiconductors quantum wells. The light and heavy hole subbands are strongly hybridized and this subband mixing has important effects on electronic and optical properties. A systematic study of the mixing effects on valence subband structure, exciton binding energies and oscillator strengths, and absorption spectra is undertaken using a multiband effective mass method which takes valence subband mixing into account. In addition the method is extended to study uniaxial stress and modulation doping effects. Finally, the binding energies and radiative lifetimes of bound excitons in direct gap semiconductors are studied in a simple model as a prelude to the study of bound excitons in quantum wells.U of I OnlyThesi