Intersubband Raman scattering in InAs/AlSb quantum wells

Raman spectroscopy has been used to study intersubband transitions in InAs/AlSb single quantum wells grown by molecular-beam epitaxy on (100) GaAs substrates using strain-relaxed AlSb or GaSb buffer layers. From the measured energies of the coupled logitudinal optical phonon-intersubband plasmon modes the single particle transition energies between the first and second confined electron subbands were deduced as a function of the width of the pseudomorphically strained InAs well. Subband spacings calculated including the effects of strain and nonparabolicity were found to be in agreement with the experimental transition energies. For a given well width, the two-dimensional electron concentration deduced from the Raman mesurements was found to be lower than the concentration measured in the dark by Hall effect, but showed a significant increase with increasing optical excitation intensity.