Transition of interband optical absorption in reduced-dimensional semiconductor structures

Abstract

We present theoretical analyses of interband optical absorption in quasi-zero-, quasi-one-, and quasi-two-dimensional semiconductor structures with varying structure sizes. In calculating the absorption coefficients, we have taken into account the broadening effect of the absorption line. Analytical results show that the absorption spectra strongly depend on the line-broadening effect, and that the transition of the absorption spectrum between structures with a smaller dimensionality difference occurs at smaller structure size. For GaAs structures the transition occurs at about 0.1 μm, when the dimensionality difference is 1.