Low-dimensional CdS/CdTe multiple-quantum well heterostructure for optical refrigeration

Abstract

The major challenge for semiconductors to achieve temperatures below 10 K by luminescence upconversion, is that at these lattice temperatures the acoustic phonon component dominates and the scattering rate becomes comparable to the band-to-band radiative transition rate. This problem can be significantly alleviated by employing quantum-confined systems, where relaxation of wave-vector conservation in the confined direction reduces material conductivity by nearly three orders of magnitude. Although previous studies have reported theoretical and experimental analyses of cooling characteristics for bulk semiconductors, the electron band-to-band transition due to photon absorption or photon emission under cooling conditions in quantum-confined semiconductor systems which exhibit quantum effects at the dimensions of several nanometers have not been completely analyzed in conventional theoretical studies. We realized a numerical investigation of optical cooling conditions for a low-dimensional CdS/CdTe multiple-quantum well heterostructure where injected carriers in the active region are quantum mechanically confined in one dimension. Effects of such quantum mechanically confined carriers on photon absorption and photoluminescence (PL) were analyzed under cooling conditions. Most importantly, the CdS/CdTe heterostructure absorption and PL spectra for cooling conditions were defined in terms of the active layer width and number of quantum wells in the complete heterostructure.