The effect of quasi-periodicity on the resonant tunneling lifetimes of states in electrically biased semiconductor superlattices

摘要

The tunneling lifetimes of quasi-resonant states for electrons in various kinds of generalized Fibonacci and generalized Thue-Morse GaAs-AlxGa1-xAs superlattices have been evaluated numerically under variable dc bias conditions. All the quasi-periodic systems have been framed using the generalized block model. The variation of the lifetime at different quasi-resonant levels with respect to the external dc field undergoes a remarkable change due to the effect of quasi-periodicity. The occurrence of a minimum value of the average lifetime and its dependence on quasi-periodicity have been analyzed. It is shown that the low-order quasi-periodicity in the case of the generalized Fibonacci superlattice and the high-order quasi-periodicity for the generalized Thue-Morse superlattice hold promise for potential device applications. The impact of an increase in the number of barriers on the tunneling lifetime has also been studied exhaustively.