Some effects of a longitudinal electric field on the photoluminescence of p-doped GaAs-AlxGa1−xAs quantum well heterostructures

Some effects of a longitudinal electric field on the intrinsic and extrinsic photoluminescence of Be-doped GaAs-AlxGa1−xAs multiquantum well samples grown by molecular beam epitaxy have been investigated. The principal sample exhibits four photoluminescence peaks whose relative intensities are observed to change in a very nonuniform manner with forward bias. As the forward bias is reduced (i.e., electric field increased) luminescence is shifted progressively from the free n=1 heavy hole exciton peak to the n=1 heavy hole exciton bound to Be0 peak to an n=1 confined electron-Be0 peak. Changes in the integrated photoluminescence by more than two orders of magnitude are observed over the bias region studied. Shifts in the energy positions of the various peaks with bias are at most of the order of 1 meV.