Theory of the linewidth of intersubband plasmons in quantum wells - art. no. 037402

Intersubband (ISB) plasmons in remotely doped wide quantum wells acquire a linewidth even at zero temperature and in-plane wave vector q(parallel to) = 0 by a combination of intrinsic (electron-electron interaction) and extri nsic effects (impurities and interface roughness). We present a quantitativ ely accurate theory of the linewidth that treats both effects on equal foot ing and from first principles by a combination of time-dependent density-fu nctional theory with the memory function formalism. Comparison with recent optical absorption experiments shows that the ISB plasmon linewidth has a s ignificant contribution from electron-electron interaction, and is only wea kly related to the mobility.