Influence of image charge effect on the binding energy of hydrogen-like donor impurity in a near-surface quantum well under transverse electric field

Abstract

We present a systematic theoretical study of the influence of image charges on the spectrum of a shallow donor impurity located anywhere in a near-surface quantum well under the electric field applied along the growth direction of the system. We calculate the binding energies of the ground and excited donor impurity states in the effective-mass approximation using the variational method for various values of the quantum well width, electric field strength, and donor positions within the well. Theoretical results indicate that the role of image charges is especially important for small widths of a quantum well. In contrast to the ground state, the influence of image charges on the binding energy of excited states is significant only at small values of the electric field. Therefore such fields can serve as a means to control the transition energies between ground and first excited states.