Interplay between disorder and intersubband collective excitations in the two-dimensional electron gas

Abstract

Intersubband absorption in modulation-doped quantum wells is usually appropriately described as a collective excitation of the confined two-dimensional electron gas. At sufficiently low electron density and low temperatures, however, the in-plane disorder potential is able to damp the collective modes by mixing the intersubband charge-density excitation with single-particle localized modes. Here we show experimental evidence of this transition. The results are analyzed within the framework of the density functional theory and highlight the impact of the interplay between disorder and the collective response of the two-dimensional electron gas in semiconductor heterostructures.

5 pages, 4 figures, RevTeX. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. B (Rapid. Comm.)

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Intersubband absorption linewidth in GaAs quantum wells due to scattering by interface roughness, phonons, alloy disorder, and impurities
• Intersubband gain in a Bloch oscillator and Quantum cascade laser
• Charge induced coherence between intersubband plasmons in a quantum structure
• Terahertz lasing from intersubband polariton-polariton scattering in asymmetric quantum wells
• Controlling many-body effects in the midinfrared gain and THz absorption of quantum cascade laser structures
• Self-consistent Overhauser model for the pair distribution function of an electron gas in dimensionalities D=3 and D=2
• Polaritonic spectroscopy of intersubband transitions
• Gate controlled coupling of intersubband plasmons
• Magnetic-field-induced cavity protection for intersubband polaritons