TEMPERATURE-DEPENDENT AND CARRIER-DENSITY-DEPENDENT ELECTRON-TUNNELING KINETICS IN (GA,IN)AS (AL,IN)AS ASYMMETRIC DOUBLE-QUANTUM WELLS/

We present a detailed investigation of electron tunneling in (Ga,In)As /(Al,In)As asymmetric double quantum wells as a function of different excitation and temperature conditions. We show that tunneling dynamics depend strongly on the initial carrier temperature and momentum. For example, electron and hole tunneling out of the narrow well is complet e at low temperature. However at room temperature carriers do not exhi bit any tunneling kinetics. We propose a simple kinetic model which de scribes the observed population dynamics at different carrier densitie s, temperatures, and excitation conditions. (C) 1996 American Institut e of Physics.