P. Hawker et al., HEAT PULSE STUDIES OF THE ENERGY RELAXATION BY PHONON EMISSION OF A HEATED 2DEG IN A GAAS (ALGA)AS QUANTUM-WELL STRUCTURE/, Semiconductor science and technology, 10(5), 1995, pp. 601-605
Heat pulse techniques have been used to study the energy relaxation vi
a phonon emission of hot electrons in a 200 Angstrom wide GaAs/(AlGa)A
s quantum well structure in which two 2D electronic subbands were occu
pied. The electrons were heated by applying 20 ns electrical pulses to
the device and the emitted phonons were detected on the opposite surf
ace of the substrate using superconducting aluminium bolometers. It is
found that at excitation levels above about 3 pW per carrier the ener
gy relaxation process is basically the same as for a device based on a
single heterostructure: that is, the energy relaxation is dominated b
y the emission of optic mode phonons which ultimately decay to acousti
c phonons. However, as the excitation power was reduced below 3 pW per
carrier there was a marked difference between this system and heteros
tructures, in that a strong longitudinal acoustic mode phonon peak is
observed in the emission signal. It is argued that the longitudinal ph
onon emission is associated with intersubband electronic transitions.