Collective excitations in coupled quantum wells

Abstract

The dielectric response of a modulated three-dimensional electron system composed of a periodic array of quantum wells with weak coupling and strong coupling are studied, and the dispersions of the collective excitations and the single particle excitations as functions of wave vectors are given. It is found that for the nearly isolated multiple-quantum-well case with several subbands occupation, there is a three-dimensional-like plasmon when q z =0 ( q z is the wave-vector component in the superlattice axis). There also exist inter-subband collective excitations in addition to one intra-subband mode when q z ≠0. The intra-subband mode has a linear dispersion relation with q | (the wave-vector component perpendicular to the superlattice axis) when q | is small. The inter-subband modes cover wider ranges in q | with increasing values of q z . The energies of inter-subband collective excitations are close by the corresponding inter-subband single-particle excitation spectra. The collective excitation dispersions show obvious anisotropy in the 2D quantum limit. The calculated results agree with the experiment. The coupling between quantum wells affects markedly both the collective excitations and the single particle excitations spectra. The system shows gradually a near-three-dimensional electron gas character with increasing coupling.