Transient photovoltaic effect in semiconductor superlattices

Abstract
We present a quantum theory of the transient photovoltaic effect which occurs in sawtooth and InAs-GaSb superlattices. This effect arises from the lack of reflection symmetry and from the carrier spatial separation. The ground-state eigenfunctions and the electronic structure of sawtooth superlattices are obtained with use of the envelope-function method. Finally, we discuss the time dependence of this new photovoltaic effect.