Elimination of the acoustoelectric domain and increasing of the emission intensity by means of shunting the lateral current in the InGaAs/GaAs heterostructures

Abstract: There has been experimentally implemented a technique of neutralization of an acoustoelectric domain under the conditions of the lateral transport of charge carriers in strong electric fields in the multilayer InGaAs/GaAs heterostructures with quantum wells. The technique is implemented by means of deposition of a shunting semi opaque silver film on the heterostructure surface between the ohmic contacts. In absence of shunting the domain appearance leads to current decrease, current oscillations and also to a strong decrease of the band-to-band emission during a voltage pulse applied to the sample. The shunting eliminated the current decrease and enabled it to strongly enlarge the band-to-band emission intensity.