Infrared optical absorbance of intersubband transitions in GaN/AlGaN multiple quantum well structures

Intersubband transitions in Si-doped molecular beam epitaxy grown GaN/AlGaN multiple quantum wells on c-plane sapphire were investigated using the Fourier-transform infrared optical absorption technique. Several GaN quantum well samples were grown with either AlGaN bulk or GaN/AlGaN short period superlattice barriers. The measurements were made in a waveguide configuration utilizing a facet polished at 45° to the c plane. The integrated area of the intersubband transitions in several waveguides cut from different location of the wafer was measured, from which we estimated the two-dimensional electron gas density (σ). The measured values of σ are about two orders of magnitude larger than the Si doping level of ∼8×1017 cm−3, which is consistent with the polarization effects, particularly considering the large number of GaN/AlGaN interfaces. The internal quantum efficiency of the intersubband transitions was estimated to be on the order of 40% for samples with superlattice barriers.