Optical-phonon modes and electron-phonon interaction in arbitrary semiconductor planar microcavities

Within the framework of the standard dielectric continuum model, we solve t he optical-phonon modes in an arbitrary semiconductor multilayer heterostru cture using the transfer-matrix method and derive the dispersion relation f or the interface modes. The explicit form of the polarization field and the electron-phonon interaction Frohlich-like Hamiltonian is obtained for the first time. The analytical formulas are universal, which can be applied to investigations of both the optical-phonon modes and the electron-phonon int eraction operator in semiconductor planar microcavities (MC's), superlattic es (SL's), and quantum wells (QW's). Our theory allows to obtain all import ant earlier results and predicts a phenomena. We find that, for a QW planar MC, the electron interaction with the QW modes is most important for large r wave vector k among all of the interface phonon modes. It can be approxim ately replaced by the electron-phonon interaction Hamiltonian in a single Q W with the same width as the QW in the MC if k greater than or equal to 2 x 10(5) cm(-1). The relative importance of the AlAs- and GaAs-type optical p honons for the GaAs/AlAs SLs is also discussed. [S0163-1829(99)01347-8].