Confinement potential and surface state density in deep-mesa etched quantum wires

Abstract

We present an electrostatic model to determine the surface charge density and confinement potential in etched AlGaAs/GaAs quantum wires. In far-infrared transmission experiments we have determined the resonance frequencies of the dynamic eigenmodes of the quantum wire, which gives an independent determination of the confinement potential. We find good agreement with the modeled potential, which shows that this model gives a very good description of the electronic system.