Radiative recombination characteristics in GaAs multilayer n(+)-i interfaces

In this communication, we have carried out a detailed investigation of radi ative recombination in n-GaAs homojunction far-infrared detector structures with multilayer emitter (n(+))-intrinsic (i) interfaces by temperature-dep endent steady-state photoluminescence measurements. The observation of the emitter-layer luminescence structures has been identified from their lumine scence characteristics, in combination with high density theoretical calcul ation. A photogenerated carrier transferring model has been proposed, which can well explain the dependencies of the luminescence intensities on the l aser excitation intensity and temperature. Furthermore, the obtained radiat ive recombination behavior helps us to offer a proposal to improve the oper ating temperature of the detector. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.