Abstract
The effect on the low-temperature photoluminescence from AlGaAs/GaAs quantum wells of an electric field parallel to the quantum well plane has been investigated. The quantum well structures were grown by molecular-beam epitaxy, doped with Si in the center of the well, with well widths varying from 40 to 190 A. Welldefined thresholds in the change of luminescence intensity from the free and bound excitons at fields near a few tens of V/cm have been observed, accompanied by a sharp increase in the current. The actual threshold is critically dependent on the well width of the sample, which is qualitatively explained by the differences in carrier mobility. Photoluminescence lifetime measurements of the excitons show that the recombination lifetime is unaffected during the quenching. The mechanism responsible for the observed effects is impact ionization of the excitons and shallow donors by the free carriers heated in the electric field.
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