Abstract

We report on some electronic features displayed by semiconductor superlattices subjected to a static electric field applied parallel to the growth axis. When the electrostatic energy difference eFd across one superlattice period d becomes comparable to the subband width, the tunnel coupling between consecutive wells is inhibited. In turn, the superlattice minibands are washed out and replaced by evenly spaced Wannier Stark ladders, while the corresponding eigenfunctions become tightly localized in space. Such changes imply an effective blue shift of the band to band absorption edge as well as the occurence in the intermediate field regime of satellite optical transitions which are oblique in real space and differ by ± eFd, ± 2 eFd,… from the main, vertical, ones. The in-plane dispersions of the valence energy levels are complicated but remain analyzable in terms of an interplay between the field-induced localization and resonances between different subbands belonging to adjacent wells.

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