Tunneling spectroscopy of hole plasmons in a valence-band quantum well

Authors

B. R. Neves, University of Nottingham, UK
T. J. Foster, University of Nottingham, UK
L. Eaves, University of Nottingham, UK
P. C. Main, University of Nottingham, UK
M. Henini, University of Nottingham, UK
D. J. Fisher, University of Wollongong
M. L. Lerch, University of WollongongFollow
A. D. Martin, University of Wollongong
C. Zhang, University of WollongongFollow

Publication Details

This article was originally published as: Neves, BRA, Foster, TJ, Eaves, L, Main, PC, Henini, M, Fisher, DJ, Lerch, ML, Martin, AD & Zhang, C, Tunneling spectroscopy of hole plasmons in a valence-band quantum well, Physical Review B, 1996, 54(16), R11106-R11109. Copyright 1996 American Physical Society. The original journal can be found here.

Abstract

We investigate the current-voltage characteristics of a p-doped resonant tunneling diode. In the voltage range slightly above the bias corresponding to resonant tunneling of holes into the first light-hole subband of the quantum well, we observe two satellite peaks which we attribute to plasmon-assisted tunneling transitions. A theoretical model is presented to account for these peaks. The model is based on the excitation of intrasubband and intersubband heavy-hole plasmons in the quantum well by hot holes injected close to the energy of the first light-hole subband. We also study the behavior of the satellites when a magnetic field is applied either parallel to or perpendicular to the current.