Browsing by Subject "Electron-phonon interaction"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4

Open Access
Electronic structure of low dimensional semiconductor systems
(1992) Gülseren, Oğuz
Recent progress made in the growth techniques has led to the fabrication of the artificial semiconductor systems of lower dimension. Electrons and holes in these materials have quantization different from those of the three dimensional systems presenting unusual electronic properties and novel device applications. In this work, the important features of the free carriers in semiconductor superlattices are examined, and the electronic structure of some novel 2D semiconductor systems are investigated theoretically. This thesis studies various systems of lower dimensionality such as: the strained Si/Ge superlattices, i-doping. Si (100) surface and the tip-sample interaction in scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) study of this surface, and Wannier-Stark localization in finite length superlattices. The electronic energy structure of pseudomorphic Ge„i/Si„ superlattices is investigated by using the empirical tight binding method. Effects of the band offset, sublattice periodicity and the lateral lattice constant on the transition energies have been investigated. It is found that Ge„i/Si„ superlattices grown on Ge (001) can have a direct band gap, if m + n = 10 and m = 6. However, optical matrix elements for in-plane and perpendicular polarized light are negligible for the transition from the highest valence band to the lowest conduction band state at the center of the superlattice Brillouin zone. The electronic structure of the Si i-layer in germanium is explored by using the Green’s function formalism with layer orbitals. We found two dimensional parabolic subbands near the band edges. This approach is extended to treat the electronic structure of a single quantum well without invoking the periodically repeating models. Quantum well formation in Ge,„Si„ superlattices is also studied by using different number of ^-layers. Subband structure is observed by changing the height of the Si quantum well. The confinement of acoustical modes within 2DEG due to only the electronphonon interaction is proposed. The confined modes split out from the bulk phonons, if the 2DEG is created by means of modulation doping. This occurs even if the lattice has uniform parameters. The effect is more pronounced when the wave vector q of the modes increases and is maximum a,t q = 2kp {kp is the Fermi wave vector). In the case of several electron sheets the additional features of the confinement effect appear. Green’s function method is also applied to treat the modifications of electronic state density in STM. The tip-sample interaction in STM study of Si (100) surface is explored by calculating the Gieen’s function within the empirical tight binding method. Both of the proposed reconstruction models, buckled and symmetrical dimer model, is investigated. A dip occurs in the change of density of states of surface atoms at the energy of surface states for small tip-sample distances, and it decreases with increasing tip-sample separation. Although, in-plane tip position (above the up- or down-surface atom) affects the surface atoms differently in buckled dimer model, it influences the surface atoms symmetrically in symmetric dimer model. Recent experimental studies revealed the significant information on the Wannier-Stark localization. Following these experimental results, the WannierStark ladder is investigated by carrying out numerical calculations on a multiple quantum well structure under an applied electric field. The variation of the Wannier-Stark ladder energies and localization of the corresponding wave II function are examined for a wide range of applied electric field. Our results show that Wannier-Stark ladder do exist for finite but periodic system which consists of a large number of quantum well having multi-miniband structure. It is found that the miniband states are localized in the well regions with the applied electric field, while the continuum states preserve their extended character. Energies of the well states show a linear shift with the electric field except the small field values in which a nonlinear shift is resulted. Multiband calculations show that there is a mixing between the different band states although they are localized in different well regions.
Open Access
Phonon-mediated electron-electron interaction in confined media: low-dimensional bipolarons
(2000-09) Senger, R. Tuğrul
We study the criterion for the formation of confined large bipolarons and their stability. In order to deal with this specific subject of polaron theory, it is required to adopt some particular approximation methods, because the polaronic systems do not admit exact analytic solutions in general. Those approximation techniques, which are applied to the low-dimensional one-polaron problems, are presented to some extent to form a working basis for our main theme, bipolarons. As the model of confined bipolaron, the electrons are treated as bounded within an external potential while being coupled to one another via the Fröhlich interaction Hamiltonian. Within the framework of the bulk-phonon approximation, the model that we use consists of a pair of electrons immersed in a reservoir of bulk LO phonons and confined within an anisotropic parabolic potential box, the barrier slopes of which can be tuned arbitrarily from zero to infinity. Thus, encompassing the bulk and all low-dimensional geometric configurations of general interest, we obtain an explicit tracking of the critical values of material parameters for the bipolarons to exist in confined media. First, in the limit of strong electron-phonon coupling, we present a unified insight into the stability criterion by applying the Landau-Pekar strong coupling approximation. This crude approximation provides us the condition on the ratio of dielectric constants (η = epsilon substcript infinity/epsilon substrcript 0) for large values of electron-phonon coupling constant α. For more reliable results, we consider the path-integral formulation of the problem adopting the Feynman-polaron model to derive variational results over a wide range of the Coulomb interaction and phonon coupling strengths. It is shown that the critical values of α and η exhibit some non-trivial features as the effective dimensionality is varied, and the path integral results conform to those of strong coupling approximation in the limit of large α.
Open Access
Quantum size effect on the phonon-induced Zeeman splitting in a GaAs quantum dot with Gaussian and parabolic confining potentials
(Elsevier B.V., 2008) Mukhopadhyaya, S.; Boyacioglu, B.; Saglam, M.; Chatterjee, A.
The Zeeman splitting of the ground and the first excited level of a Gaussian GaAs quantum dot is studied in the presence of electron-longitudinal-optical (LO)-phonon interaction incorporating the spin of the electron and is compared with the case of a parabolic dot. It is shown that the Zeeman splitting is suppressed because of the polaronic interaction and becomes strongly size dependent, but the parabolic confinement overestimates this Zeeman suppression. It is also shown that although the energy levels are split because of the spin-field interaction, the cyclotron frequencies and the Zeeman lines are independent of the electron spin in the dipole transition. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Open Access
Superconducting systems of low dimensionality
(1992) Gedik, M. Zafer
It is possible to call the last five years as the golden age of superconductivity. The two most important developments in the field are the discovery of copper oxide and fullerene superconductors. In this work, some possible pairing mechanisms for these materials ai’e examined by giving emphasis on the reduced dimensionality. First, an older problem, spatially separated electron-hole system, is investigated to identify the possible phases in coupled double quantum well structures in electric field. Secondly, the superconducting transition temperature and response to external magnetic fields of layered systems with varying number of layers are studied by means of a microscopic model and its GinzburgLandau version. It is also shown that an interlayer pairing mechanism, phonon assisted tunneling, can induce superconductivity. Finally, effects of the spherical structure of fullerenes are examined by solving a two fermion problem on an isolated molecule where the particles interact via a short range attractive potential. As a possible mechanism of superconductivity in alkali metal doped fullerenes, coupling between electrons and the radial vibrations of the molecule is investigated.