Optical characterization of nonuniform electric fields in multiple quantum well diodes

Abstract
Low‐temperature photocurrent and photoluminescence spectroscopies have been used to quantify the effects of electric field nonuniformities (on the order of 100 kV/cm) within the ∼1‐μm‐thick intrinsic regions of GaAs/AlGaAs multiple quantum well pin photodiodes. The smearing out of excitonic spectral features due to nonuniform fields agrees well with the results of calculations performed using a single‐band envelope‐function approximation together with a standard depletion model for a p/n+ junction.