Substantial contribution of effective mass variation to electronacoustic phonon interaction via deformation potential in semiconductor nanostructures

Using the approach of deformed ions and the tight binding, we have demonstr ated that the interaction of electrons confined in a nanostructure with aco ustic phonons in a cubic crystal is described by a deformation potential te nsor (DPT) whose symmetry is determined by the geometry of the nanostructur e. Here in, we present additional contribution to the DPT which is caused b y the deformation dependence of the electron effective mass and it increase s as L-2 when the characteristic size of a nanostructure, L, decreases. For narrow GaAs-based quantum wells, this contribution is comparable with and can overcome that from the usual deformation potential coupling. (C) 1999 A merican Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(99)00911-0].