Calculation of phonon-assisted tunneling between two quantum wells

Abstract

We have calculated the longitudinal optical phonon scattering between two subbands of a system of two coupled quantum wells. Our model takes the delocalization of the wave function over the whole structure into account, thus avoiding the shortcomings of earlier computations for thin barriers. The dependence on the various parameters (width of the wells and of the barrier, band offset, voltage drop between the wells, temperature, and effective mass of carriers) is discussed and illustrated.