Intersubband absorption linewidth in GaAs quantum wells due to scattering by interface roughness, phonons, alloy disorder, and impurities

We calculate the intersubband absorption linewidth 2Γ_op in quantum wells (QWs) due to scattering by interface roughness, LO phonons, LA phonons, alloy disorder, and ionized impurities, and compare it with the transport energy broadening 2Γ_tr=2ħ/τ_tr, which corresponds to the transport relaxation time τ_tr related to the electron mobility μ. Numerical calculations for GaAs QWs clarify the different contributions of each individual scattering mechanism to the absorption linewidth 2Γ_op and transport broadening 2Γ_tr. Interface roughness scattering contributes about an order of magnitude more to the linewidth 2Γ_op than to the transport broadening 2Γ_tr, because the contribution from the intrasubband scattering in the first excited subband is much larger than that in the ground subband. On the other hand, LO phonon scattering (at room temperature) and ionized impurity scattering contribute much less to the linewidth 2Γ_op than to the transport broadening 2Γ_tr. LA phonon scattering makes comparable contributions to the linewidth 2Γ_op and transport broadening 2Γ_tr, and so does alloy disorder scattering. The combination of these contributions with significantly different characteristics makes the absolute values of the linewidth 2Γ_op and transport broadening 2Γ_tr very different, and leads to the apparent lack of correlation between them when a parameter, such as temperature or alloy composition, is changed. Our numerical calculations can quantitatively explain the previously reported experimental results. © 2003 American Institute of Physics.