Carrier recombination rates in strained-layer InGaAs-GaAs quantum wells

Abstract

The carrier recombination rates in semiconductor quantum wells are found to be structure dependent. Under high levels of excitation they generally do not follow the recombination rule of the bulk material. Through a differential carrier-lifetime measurement in the strained-layer InGaAs/GaAs quantum wells, it is shown that in quantum wells with lower potential barrier or thinner well width, the recombination rates are smaller due to a larger portion of the injected carriers populating the confinement layers where the carriers recombine more slowly owing to dilute carrier volume density.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>