Inelastic electron and light scattering from the elementary electronic excitations in quantum wells: Zero magnetic field

摘要

The most fundamental approach to an understanding of electronic, optical, andtransport phenomena which the condensed matter physics (of conventional as wellas nonconventional systems) offers is generally founded on two experiments: theinelastic electron scattering and the inelastic light scattering. This workembarks on providing a systematic framework for the theory of inelasticelectron scattering and of inelastic light scattering from the electronicexcitations in GaAs/Ga$_{1-x}$Al$_{x}$As quantum wells. To this end, we startwith the Kubo's correlation function to derive the generalized nonlocal,dynamic dielectric function, and the inverse dielectric function within theframework of Bohm-Pines' random-phase approximation. This is followed by athorough development of the theory of inelastic electron scattering and ofinelastic light scattering. The methodological part is then subjected to theanalytical diagnoses which allow us to sense the subtlety of the analyticalresults and the importance of their applications. The general analyticalresults, which know no bounds regarding, e.g., the subband occupancy, are thenspecified so as to make them applicable to practicality. After trying andtesting the eigenfunctions, we compute the density of states, the Fermi energy,the full excitation spectrum made up of intrasubband and intersubband --single-particle and collective (plasmon) -- excitations, the loss functions forall the principal geometries envisioned for the inelastic electron scattering,and the Raman intensity, which provides a measure of the real transitionsinduced by the (laser) probe, for the inelastic light scattering...