Vertical drift mobility of excited carriers in multi quantum well structures

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Abstract
Measurements of the vertical mobility of photo‐excited carriers in quantum well infrared detectors are reported. The low temperature mobility is extracted by means of a photo geometrical magnetoresistance technique. This approach is most suitable for the multi quantum well structure geometry. Both rectangular and stepped well structures were studied. They exhibit asymmetry with regard to bias polarity for both gain and mobility. This asymmetry is shown to be contributed by both well structure, and growth induced inequivalent interfaces. The low field mobility is governed mainly by unscreened ionized impurity scattering in the barriers. The well interfaces act as additional anisotropic scattering centers. We observe clear correlation between the extracted drift velocity and the optical gain. It is postulated that anisotropic well recapture causes polarity dependent energy distribution above the barriers. In addition, we conclude that intervalley scattering of the hot electrons has a substantial influence on the detector performance.