Steady-state carrier escape from single quantum wells

The authors have studied the variation in DC photocurrent with bias and temperature from GaAs-Al/sub x/Ga/sub 1-x/As single quantum wells embedded in p-i-n diodes. They found that the observed temperature response shows Arrhenius behaviour with a field-dependent activation energy close to the hole well depth. This can be accounted for using a model based on the competition between photocarrier escape and recombination. Using reasonable values for the diode's built-in voltage and the quantum-well recombination lifetime, good quantitative agreement between theory and experiment is achieved if it is assumed that the recombination rate is governed by the fastest escaping carriers, which are light holes in the present devices.>