Carrier capture processes in GaAs-AlGaAs quantum wells due to emission of confined phonons

Abstract
Carrier capture times are calculated for GaAs-AlxGa1−xAs multiple quantum wells due to the emission of confined longitudinal optical phonons via electron-phonon (Fröhlich) interaction. We compare our results with several capture times measured by optical techniques and we discuss the importance of a knowledge of the carrier excitation details in order to obtain an appropriate interpretation of the experimental results. We show that electrons excited into confined states with a large kinetic energy (which have been ignored in previous works) strongly influence the overall capture times.