Polaron effective mass in GaAs heterostructure

Abstract

The effective mass of an electron in a GaAs heterostructure is calculated in the presence of electron—LO-phonon interaction within leading-order perturbation theory. In the purely two-dimensional limit and without any screening effect, the polaron mass correction is found to be enhanced by almost a factor of 3 over the three-dimensional Fröhlich result. Inclusion of screening and the subband wave-function effects decreases the mass correction appreciably, and excellent agreement with recent experimental results reporting negligible polaronic effect in GaAs heterostructure is obtained.