Photoluminescence line shape associated with e-${\mathit{A}}^0$ acceptor-related recombination in GaAs-(Ga,Al)As quantum wells under applied electric field

A systematic study of the e-${\mathit{A}}^0$ acceptor-related photoluminescence spectra in GaAs-(Ga,Al)As quantum wells under applied electric field is presented. The approach we adopt is based on the effective-mass approximation and a variational procedure for determining the acceptor energy and envelope wave function. The impurity-related photoluminescence line shape depends on the strength of the longitudinally applied electric field, the temperature, the quasi-Fermi energy of the conduction-subband electron gas, and on the acceptor distribution along the quantum well. We find that the spectrum line shapes are essentially characterized by the presence of three features, namely, one peaked structure associated with transitions involving acceptors with binding energies at the top of the impurity band and two van Hove–like structures related to acceptors at the two edges of the quantum well.