Impurity breakdown and electroluminescence in the terahertz range in p-GaAs and p-GaAsN microstructures

Abstract

The current-voltage characteristics of strained GaAsN:Be layers have been studied under the conditions of hopping conductivity and impurity breakdown, and the electroluminescence of these layers has been measured in the terahertz frequency range. Analogous measurements have also been performed for microstructures with unstrained GaAs:Be layers. Under the impurity breakdown conditions, the optical transitions between acceptor levels split by compressive stresses produce a dominating contribution to the integral intensity of emission from the microstructures with strained GaAsN:Be layers.