Study of intersubband transitions in GaN-ZnGeN2 coupled quantum wells

Abstract

In this work, we design and analyze a closely lattice-matched wide bandgap GaN-ZnGeN2 coupled quantum well (QW) structure targeting for near-infrared (IR) (λ ≤ 3 um) intersubband transition for quantum cascade laser applications. The coupled quantum well structure comprised two GaN wells separated by a thin ZnGeN2 barrier layer. The QW active region is surrounded by thick ZnGeN2 layers as barriers. The computations of the electron-phonon and electron-photon scattering rates are carried out by employing the Fermi's golden rule for transitions. The calculation takes into consideration the conservation of energy and momentum in scattering processes. The coupled QW structure is optimized through tuning the confined subband energy levels in the conduction band to achieve (1) electron-LO phonon resonant scattering when the energy separation between the first and second conduction subband levels matches the phonon energy of GaN (92 meV); and (2) dominant electron-photon transition in near-IR between the third and second conduction subband levels.