Thesis PDF

THEORETICAL MODELING OF QUANTUM DOT IN A
WELL INFRARED PHOTODETECTORS

By
Soumitra Roy Joy (0606001)
Golam Md. Imran Hossain (0606029)
Tonmoy Kumar Bhowmick (0606049)

A thesis submitted for the Degree of
Bachelor of Science
2012

Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology

To our loving parents.
Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge the various supports that we have re-
ceived throughout my research work and in writing this dissertation.
We would like to thank our supervisor, Dr. Farseem Mannan Mo-
hammedy, for trusting us with this work and giving us the oppor-
tunity to be involved in such a sophisticated and interesting topic
of research. We would like to thank him for proposing many of the
ideas presented here, which we was able to study in depth. Prof. Mo-
hammedyhas been nothing short of a great mentor to us, oering his
guidance throughout the intricacies of this research. The amount of
energy and devotion he allocates for his work never ceases to amaze us,
and he continues to set an example in organization, professionalism,
and scholarly prowess that is very hard to follow.
Abstract
Quantum dot in a well (DWELL) infrared photodetectors have emerged
as a promising technology in the mid- and far-infrared (325m) for
medical and environmental sensing that have a lot of advantages over
current technologies based on Mercury Cadmium Telluride (MCT)
and quantum well (QW) infrared photodetectors (QWIPs). In addi-
tion to the uniform and stable surface growth of III/V semiconductors
suitable for large area focal plane applications and thermal imaging,
the three dimension connement in QDs allow sensitivity to normal
incidence, high responsivity, low darkcurrent and high operating tem-
perature. The growth, processing and characterizations of these de-
tectors are costly and take a lot of time. So, developing theoretical
models based on the physical operating principals will be so useful in
characterizing and optimizing the device performance.
Theoretical models based on non-equilibrium Greens functions have
been developed to electrically and optically characterize dierent struc-
tures of DWELL s. The advantage of the model over the previous
developed classical and semiclassical models is that it fairly describes
quantum transport phenomenon playing a signicant role in the per-
formance of such nano-devices and considers the microscopic device
structure including the shape and size of QDs, heterostructure device
structure and doping density. The model calculates the density of
states from which all possible energy transitions can be obtained and
hence obtains the operating wavelengths for intersubband transitions.
The responsivity due to intersubband transitions is estimated and the
eect of having dierent sizes and dierent height-to-diameter ratio
QDs can be obtained for optimization.
Theoretical modeling developed in the thesis give good description
to the QDIP dierent characteristics that will help in getting good
estimation to their physical performance and hence allow for successful
device design with optimized performance and creating new devices,
thus saving both time and money.
Contents
Contents v
List of Figures viii
Nomenclature x
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Quantum Dots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 Quantum Dot Infrared Photodetectors (QDIPs) . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3 Importance of DWELL Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.4 Multi-Band Radiation Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.5 Thesis Outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.6 Thesis Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2 Non-equilibrium Greens functions 11
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2 Preliminary Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.3 Greens functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.3.1 Why do we want to calculate the Greens function? . . . . 15
2.3.2 Self-Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.3.3 The spectral function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.4 Response to an incoming wave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.5 Charge density matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.6 Boundary conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.7 The semiclassical limit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
v
CONTENTS vi
2.8 Quantum well structures: Why NEGF is essential . . . . . . . . . 24
2.9 Limits and simplications in NEGF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.10 THz quantum cascade lasers: a classics for NEGF . . . . . . . . . 26
2.11 Comparison between NEGF and Monte -Carlo . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.11.1 Monte-Carlo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.12 Why nonequilibrium Green functions? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.13 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3 QDIPs density of states modeling 31
3.1 DWELL QDIP Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.2 Numerical Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.3 Calculation of Self Energy: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.4 Computational Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.5 How to confront the challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.5.1 Reduce the number of grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.5.2 Non-uniform distribution of grid point . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.5.3 Disintegrating a large matrix into several smaller matrices 42
3.5.4 Dealing with Sparse Matrix other than conventional matrix 43
3.5.5 Using all the processors in a computer in a parallel process 43
3.6 Result- Our Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.7 Comparing Experimental results with simulated ones . . . . . . . 47
4 Dipole Moment and Absorption Coecient 53
4.1 Transitional Dipole Moment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.2 Optical Transition using Fermis Golden Rule . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.3 The Electron-Photon Interaction Hamiltonian . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.4 Transition Rate due to Electron-Photon Interaction . . . . . . . . 57
4.5 Optical Absorption Coecient . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4.6 Wavefunction Calculation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.7 Our Findings and Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
4.8 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
5 Conclusions 69
5.1 CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
CONTENTS vii
5.2 FUTURE WORK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
5.2.1 INTERMIXING AND STRAIN EFFECT . . . . . . . . . 71
5.2.2 NON-UNIFORMITY OF QDS SIZE, AND DISTRIBUTION 72
5.2.3 INTERACTION WITH THE LATTICE . . . . . . . . . . 73
5.2.4 TRANSIENT RESPONSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
References 75
List of Figures
1.1 Band structure of a GaAs/AlGaAs Quantum well . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 Density of states, bandstructure and carrier distribution for (a)
bulk, (b) quantum well, (c) quantum wire and (d) quantum dots. 4
1.3 Band structure of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.4 Various transitions in the dots-in-well (DWELL) QDIP . . . . . . 6
2.1 System Contact with Channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2 (Color online) Left: Calculated carrier density for a homogeneously
doped semiconductor at zero bias, attached to leads with an equi-
librium distribution. The expected homogeneous density is ob-
tained only if the leads include the same type of scattering self
energies as the device (red curve). Otherwise one obtains articial
charge accumulation (blue curve). Right: GaAs n-i-n structure at
room temperature under bias with asymmetric doping prole as
indicated by the grey lines.Once a current is owing. the charge
distribution within the leads must be a suitably shifted Fermi dis-
tribution that reects global current conservation (results shown
by thc red curve). Otherwise, NEGF calculations yield articial
pinch-o eects (blue lines) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.3 Comparison of fully self-consistent NEGF and semiclassical carrier
dynamics calculations for a standard GaAs resistor (50 nm n-i-n
structure) at zero bias and room temperature . . . . . . . . . . . 23
viii
LIST OF FIGURES ix
2.4 (Color onlinc) Carrier dynamics calculation for 50 nm n-i-n struc-
ture at room tcmperature with a 12 nm InGaAs quantum well
as intrinsic zone attached to eld-free GaAs leads of the same n-
density.The applicd voltage is 150 mV across thc structure.Red
curve: calculalion in terms of charge-self-consistent semiclassical
Boltzmann equation.Blue curve: Calculation in terms of strictly
ballistic NEGF, equivalent to thc solution of Schrodinger equation
of open system. Black curve: Fully self-consistent NEGF calculation 23
2.5 Contour graph of calculated energy resolved electron density for
50 nm n-i-n structure at room temperature with a 12 nm lnGaAs
quantum well as intrinsic zone for zero applied bias. The density
scale is the analogous to the one in Fig. 5. but for lower doping.
(a) Strictly ballistic NEGF calculation (no scattering included).
(b) Fully self-consistent NEGF calculation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.6 Contour graph of calculated energy resolved electron density for
50 nm n-i-n structure at room temperature with a 12 nm InGaAs
quantum well as intrinsic zone for zero applied bias. (a) Fully self
consistent NEGF calculation. (b) NEGF calculation with coupling 25
2.7 Comparison between experimental (Ref. [27]) and calculated (Ref.
([13]) current-voltage characteristics for AIGaAs/GaAs quantum
cascade structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.1 Cross-section schematic of a 10 layer InAs/InGaAs quantum dot
in a well detector, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3.2 Cross-section TEM image of a single QD layer of DWELL [14] . . 32
3.3 Cross-section TEM image of an InAs/InGaAs DWELL Heterostruc-
tures [14] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.4 Theoretical Modeling of DWELL QDIP Structure . . . . . . . . . 33
3.5 Conduction band osets and energy levels of QDWELL [14] . . . 34
3.6 Cross section of a cylinder is disintegrated into a number of grids 35
3.7 Device structure with grid division . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.8 Device cross section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
LIST OF FIGURES x
3.9 Progressive red shift in the peak operating wavelength of the de-
tector as the width of the bottom InGaAs is increased from 10 to
60 angstrom. The spectre has been vertically displaced for clarity.
[7] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.10 Multicolour response in the mid-wave, long-wave and very long-
wavelength regimes with the associated transitions in the inset.[11] 46
3.11 The very long-wave infrared (VLWIR) response was observed till
80 K [23] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.12 DOS prole for bottom well width=6nm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.13 Eect of changing well width on DOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.14 Eect of changing well width on DOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.15 Potential Prole . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.16 LDOS at E=-270.3208mev . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.17 LDOS at E=-61.8225mev . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.18 LDOS at E=-15mev . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.19 LDOS at E=77mev . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
4.1 Dipole moment versus wavelength for S polarized incident light in a
standard dot-in-a-well infrared photodetector. QD has Height/Base=6.5nm/11nm 64
4.2 Absorption coecient versus wavelength for S polarized incident
light in a standard dot-in-a-well infrared photodetector. QD has
Height/Base=6.5nm/11nm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.3 Comparison of absorption coecient of dierent hypothetical QDIPs
having various Height to Base ratio. Incident Light is S polarized
(in plane incidence) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.4 Comparison of absorption coecient of dierent hypothetical QDIPs
having various Height to Base ratio. Incident Light is P polarized
(45 degree incidence to growth plane) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4.5 Relative change of absorption peak with dot dimension change.
Absorption peak found for 7nm QD base is taken as unity, when
incident light is S polarized. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
LIST OF FIGURES xi
4.6 Relative change of absorption peak with dot dimension change.
Absorption peak found for 7nm QD base is taken as unity, when
incident light is P polarized. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Chapter 1
Introduction
High performance Infrared photodetectors in the mid- and far-infrared (3- 25 m)
wavelength range have attracted much interest due to their important sensing
applications . They are used in medical and environmental sensing, optical com-
munications, thermal imaging, night vision cameras, and missile tracking and
recognition. It is required to obtain a technology that gives high performance
at high operating temperature and with low cost. Current technologies based on
Mercury Cadmium Telluride (MCT) and quantum well (QW) infrared detectors
(QWIPs) have some disadvantages that lower the overall performance of the sens-
ing devices. The MCTs epitaxial growth problems limit the manufacturing yield
of large area focal plane arrays (FPAs) applications. QWIPs do not support nor-
mal incidence detections and so need complicated optical coupling in addition to
the requirement of operating at very low temperature . The advance in epitaxial
growth of heterostructure semiconductors allows for the fabrication of devices at
nano scale dimensions. These nano-devices have new physical operating princi-
ples and novel performance characteristics. Quantum dots (QDs) grown by the
self-assembled epitaxial technique have attracted much interest in recent years for
laser and photodetector applications. In addition to the low cost, stable and uni-
form surface epitaxial growth of the III/V semiconductors, suitable for large area
FPAs application in thermal imaging, the three-dimensional connement in QDs
has many advantages such as the intrinsic sensitivity to normal-incidence light
which simplies the optical conguration for any application, reduced electron-
phonon scattering, long-lived excited states, low dark current and high temper-
1
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 2
atureoperation . These advantages make quantum dot infrared photodetectors
(QDIPs) emerge as an alternative technology to replace QWIP and MCT infrared
detectors. Therefore, improving the QDIP performance by optimizing the device
design through accurate modeling is useful for obtaining the required character-
istics. In this research work, theoretical models based on non-equilibrium Greens
functions will be developed to describe the electrical and optical characteristics of
QDIPs. The model results will be compared to the available experimental results
and the models will be used for optimizing the device performance.
1.1 Quantum Dots
A quantum well (QW) is a thin layer which can conne electrons or holes in
the dimension perpendicular to the layer surface, while the movement with in
the layer is not restricted . A QW is formed when a lower band gap material
is sandwiched between higher band gap materials. Figure illustrates the band
structure of a GaAs/AlGaAs11 based QW . As seen in the gure, the electron is
conned in the z-direction, or normal to the surface of the layer, by the QW. As
a layer thickness approaches de-Broglie wavelength (i.e. about 10 nm), quantum
eects can be seen. Therefore, usually the QW thickness is in the order of 1 to 15
nm. Similarly, in the quantum dot the carrier is conned in all three dimensions.
The change in connement can be better understood if we compare the density
of states for bulk (0-dimension), QW (1-dimension), Quantum dash or wire (2-
dimensions) and QD (3-dimensions). As seen in Figure, the density of states
function for bulk is continuous and proportional to the square root of energy
. The density of states decreases for QW compared to the bulk and is a step
function. For the quantum wire the density of states further decreases compared
to the QW. For QDs, the density of states decreases compared to a quantum
wire and is a delta function in energy. For real devices made of QDs, however,
the density of states has a line broadening due to variations in dot size. The low
density of states and small size of the dots means that fewer carriers are needed to
invert the carrier population, which results in low threshold current density and
high characteristic temperature when incorporated as active region in a laser. In
terms of detector, the absorption of the dots can be easily saturated due to the
Figure 1.1: Band structure of a GaAs/AlGaAs Quantum well
nite density of states.
1.2 Quantum Dot Infrared Photodetectors (QDIPs)
The three-dimensional connement of QDs helps in localization of carriers re-
ducing the thermionic emission which in turn lowers the dark current . The
intersubband energy level spacing in the QDs is greater than the phonon energy
and, therefore, reduces the phonon scattering, which is a dominant scattering
mechanism in bulk and QWs. This is the reason for long carrier relaxation times
in QDIPs, which in turn increases the photoconductive gain. The responsivity
and detectivity are also increased due to the increase in gain and photocurrent
. In addition, QDIPs are sensitive to normal incidence radiation, which is not
possible in QWIPs, due to polarization selection rules, and requires specialized
gratings to direct the radiation into the detector. The QDs are normally doped
to about than 1-2 electrons per dot in order to prevent carriers from occupying
the excited state which will increase the dark current. The thickness of the bar-
riers surrounding the quantum dots, the doping concentration, and the number
Figure 1.2: Density of states, bandstructure and carrier distribution for (a) bulk,
(b) quantum well, (c) quantum wire and (d) quantum dots.
of quantum dot layers are important parameters to consider while designing a
QDIP.
QDIPs suer from low QE due to low absorption cross section resulting from
low density of QDs and nite spacing between the dots . This thesis discusses
dierent ways to improve the quantum eciency and other performance param-
eters like responsivity, detectivity, operating temperature, of QDIPs based on
dots-in-well (DWELL) design.
1.3 Importance of DWELL Design
In the DWELL design, the active region consists of 2.4 MLs of InAs QDs placed
in an 11nm In0.15Ga0.85As QW sandwiched between 50 nm thick GaAs barriers,
which in turn is placed in a GaAs matrix. The DWELL design is shown in Figure
1.6. As seen in the gure, there is a large conduction band oset (i.e. 250 meV)
between the ground electronic state of the InAs QD and the conduction band
edge of the GaAs barrier, which reduces the thermionic emission and therefore
low dark current . Due to low dark current, QDIPs are expected to have higher
operating temperatures than QWIPs. The total band oset is calculated from
photoluminescence (PL) spectrum and using the 60-40split. The excited state is
obtained from spectral response and theoretical modeling . The spacing between
the ground electronic state and excited state is found to be about 50 -60 meV.
The PL spectrum of the 10-period InAs/ In0.15Ga0.85As dots-in-well (DWELL)
QDIP is shown in Figure .
Infrared detectors based on DWELL design primarily work on bound-to-
bound transitions from the ground electronic state of the InAs QD to the In0.15Ga0.85As
QW and bound-to-continuum transition from the ground electronic state of the
InAs QD to a state in the GaAs barrier as illustrated in Figure . Depending
on the bias, one of the transitions is observed in the spectral response for the
detector.
A new alternative DWELL design (InAs QDs placed in a GaAs QW) is in-
vestigated. In the standard design (InAs QDs placed in an In0.15Ga0.85As QW)
the average strain is very high and many DWELL layers cannot be grown with-
out introducing dislocations, which will lower the performance of the detectors.
Figure 1.3: Band structure of InAs/In
0.15
Ga
0.85
As DWELL
Figure 1.4: Various transitions in the dots-in-well (DWELL) QDIP
Hence, the new design is for increasing the number of DWELL layers in order
to increase the overall absorption, which in turn increases the photocurrent and
detectivity. These three approaches have signicantly improved the performance
of DWELL detectors.
1.4 Multi-Band Radiation Detection
The rapid development of infrared (IR) detector technology, which primarily in-
cludes device physics, semiconductor material growth and characterization, and
microelectronics, has led to new concepts like target recognition and tracking
systems.1, 2 Among these concepts, multi-band radiation detection is being de-
veloped as an important tool to be employed in many practical applications. De-
tecting an objects infrared emission at multiple wavelengths can be used to elimi-
nate background eects,3 and reconstruct the objects absolute temperature4 and
unique features. This plays an important role in dierentiating and identifying
an object from its background. However, measuring multiple wavelength bands
typically requires either multiple detectors or a single broad-band detector with a
lter wheel coupled to it in order to lter incident radiation from dierent wave-
length regions. Both of these techniques are associated with complicated detector
assemblies, separate cooling systems, electronic components, and optical elements
such as lenses, lters, and beam splitters. Consequently, such sensor systems (or
imaging systems) involve ne optical alignments, which in turn require a sophis-
ticated control mechanism hardware. These complications naturally increase the
cost and the load of the sensor system, a problem which can be overcome by
a single detector responding in multiple bands. The multi-spectral features ob-
tained with multi-band detectors are processed using color fusion algorithms1 in
order to extract signatures of the object with a maximum contrast. With the
development of multi-band detector systems, there is an increased research1, 5
eort to develop image fusion techniques. Fay et al.1 have reported a color-fusion
technique using a multi-sensor imagery system, which assembled four separate
detectors operating in dierent wavelength regions. The major goal of my study
is to investigate multi-band detection concepts and develop high performance
multi-band detectors.
At present, there are many applications where multi-band detectors are re-
quired. In land-mine detection3 the number of false positives can be reduced
using multi-spectral approaches, allowing the the identication of real land-mine
sites. Military applications include the use of multi-band detectors to detect muz-
zle ashes, which emit radiation in dierent wavelength regions,6 to locate the
position of enemy troops and operating combat vehicles. Multi-band focal plane
arrays (FPAs) responding in very-long-wavelength infrared (VLWIR) region (14-
30 m) can be used for space surveillance and space situational awareness,2 where
observations of extremely faint objects against a dark background are required.
Present missile-warning sensors are built focusing on the detection of ultraviolet
(UV) emission by missile plume. However, with modern missiles, attempting to
detect the plume is impractical due to its low UV emission. As a solution, IR
emission7 of the plume can be used instead of UV. Then the detector system
should be able to distinguish the missile plume against its complex background,
avoiding possible false-alarms.
Thus, a single band detector would not be a choice to achieve this. Using
a two-color (or multi-color) detector, which operates in two IR bands where the
missile plume emits radiation, the contrast between the missile plume and the
background can be maximized. Moreover, a multi-band detector can be used as a
remote thermometer4 where the objects radiation emission in the two wavelength
bands is detected by a multi-band detector and the resulting two components of
the photocurrent can be solved to extract the objects temperature.
1.5 Thesis Objective
The objectives are to develop theoretical models to well describe the electrical
and optical properties of QDIP which can be used for device design optimization
for better performance. Improving the device performance experimentally by
fabricating and testing devices using combinations of dierent design parameters
are very costly and time wasting. Hence, it is desirable to develop theoretical
modeling based on the physical operating principals that can be used in char-
acterization and optimizing the device performance through recommending the
best design parameters suitable to achieve specic characteristics.
The density of states of the QDs that gives both the discrete energy levels in
the QDs in addition to the continuum states outside the QDs.
The energy levels provided by the density of states give information about
the possible energy transitions and therefore the operating wavelengths of
the detector.
The corresponding calculated wavefunctions are used to calculate the dipole
moment between dierent energy states which indicate the strength of the
transition rates between the energy states and therefore gives information
about the relative peak of the absorption co-ecient of the detector.
The eect of changing the shape and size of QDs has been studied to estab-
lish their eects on the operating wavelength and the corresponding value
of the absorption co-ecient. The research work presented in this thesis
has resulted in the following publications:
1. Soumitra Roy Joy, Golam Md. Imran Hossain, Tonmoy Kumar Bhowmick,
Farseem Mannan Mohammedy, Inuence of Quantum Dot Dimensions in
a DWELL Photodetector on Absorption Co-ecient, in Proc. Fifth Asia
International Conference on Mathmematical Modeling and Computer Sim-
ulation (AMS), Indonesia, 2012, page no. 225-230.
2. Soumitra Roy Joy ; Tonmoy Kumar Bhowmick;Golam Md. Imran Hos-
sain; Farseem Mannan Mohammedy, Eect of Asymmetric Well Quantum
dots-in-a-well in-frared photodetectors on Density of States Using NEGF
Formalism, in Proc. International Conference on Solid State Devices and
Materials Science, April 1-2, 2012, China, page no. 299-304.
1.6 Thesis Outline
The thesis contains ve chapters. Chapter 1, above, discussed the dierent appli-
cations of infrared detectors in medical and environmental sensing. The QDIP is a
promising technology with advantages over current technologies based on QWIP
and MCT. A literature review of QDIP modeling, including classical and semi-
classical methods, has been discussed in addition to an overview of the NEGF
modeling that has been developed in the thesis.
Chapter 2 gives a review of the NEGF. The dierent Greens functions, the
self energy, and scattering functions are presented as they will be used intensively
in the following chapters of the thesis. Some applications of Greens function
have been presented. Also a comparative view between NEGF and Monte Carlo
method of analyzing device is rendered, incorporating their respective advantages,
approximation etc.
Chapter 3 shows the development of theoretical modeling to obtain the DOS
of the QDIP. The localized DOS is obtained from the retarded Greens function.
The retarded Greens function is obtained numerically by solving the governing
kinetic equation using the method of nite dierences. The model was applied
to calculate the DOS of DWELL (Dot in a Well) structure.
Chapter 4 shows the development of theoretical modeling to calculate the
dipole moment and absorption co-ecient of the QDIP. The rst order dipole
approximation and the Fermi-golden rule were used to model the interaction with
light. The bound states of the QDs have been obtained by solving the eigenvalue
problem of the QD Hamiltonian, while the continuum states have been obtained
using the retarded Greens function. The model has been applied to the QDWELL
structure. The eect of changing the shape and size of QDs on the calculated
absorption co-ecient has been studied using the DWELL structure.
Finally Chapter 5 concludes the thesis with the major ndings and the rec-
ommended improvements and extensions for future research.
Chapter 2
Non-equilibrium Greens
functions
2.1 Introduction
A proper treatment of quantum transport is one of the most dicult problems to
deal with in solid state theory. While there have been many models and concepts
developed to deal with particular aspects of quantum transport, the most general
and rigorous theoretical framework is provided by the so-called non-equilibrium
Greens function theory (NEGF) developed by Keldysh and in a slightly dierent
form independently by Kadano and Baym . It took an amazing 40 years before
this method became recognized and employed as the framework of choice for a
quantitative and predictive analysis of carrier dynamics in semiconductor based
nanostructures. There are probably several reasons why it took so long. First if
all, there are only few devices where quantum mechanical eects and incoherent
scattering eects play an equally important role and call for a fully quantum me-
chanical treatment. The most prominent examples are quantum cascade lasers
(QCL) invented by Capasso et al. in 2004. Particularly in the THz regime.
The physics of QCLs is controlled by a carefully balanced competition between
coherent tunneling and incoherent phonon emission processes. Secondly, NEGF
calculations for realistic devices are extremely demanding computationally and
have only become feasible recently. One of the rst detailed implementations
11
CHAPTER 2. NON-EQUILIBRIUM GREENS FUNCTIONS 12
of NEGF to semiconductors and semiconductor devices has been developed by
Lake and coworkers and applied to NEMO-I D, a sophisticated simulation tool for
multi-q uantum well devices such as resonant tunneling diodes . In their research,
the authors laid down the framework for applying NEGF to semiconductors by
deriving most scattering self-energies that are relevant for semiconductors. An-
other major step forward was provided by Wacker et al., who provided several
in-depth NEGF studies of the carrier dynamics and optical propen ies of QCLs.
Currently, an increasing number of groups are employing and expanding the
NEGF formalism to study quantum transpon aspects of modem semiconductor
nanostructures. Nevertheless, the fommlism still suers from being considered
somewhat obscure and dicult to grasp and handle. we will allermpt to give an
overview of the basic elements of the fommlism for nonexperts that may help to
develop a beuer feeling for strengths and weaknesses of NEGF.
Let us emphasize that NEGF is a solution framework rather than a concrete
method for calculating properties of open quantum devices. It ensures that the
non-equilibrium carrier distribution in a device is consistently calculated with the
energy, width and occupancy of its quantum mechanical eigenstates (scattering
states. to be precise). Consentration of charge, momentum and energy is guaran-
teed only if the scattering self energies are calculated exactly and self consistently,
i.e. using fully dressed Greens functions and vertices in many-body terms. Thus.
the unavoidable use of approximations requires much more eort and care than in
other methods just to avoid artifacts such as a violation of current conservation
within the device. The NEGF method is able to deal with explicitly timede-
pendent as well as with stationary problems. However. Ihe calculation of the
required set of 4 types of Greens functions for time-dependent carrier dynamics
is still pretty much Oul of reach for a quantitative prediction of realistic device
structures. Therefore. we limit the present discussion of stationary problems
where 2 types of Greens functions suce.
Non equilibrium Greens function methods are regularly used to calculate cur-
rent and charge densities in nanoscale (both molecular and semiconductor) con-
ductors under bias. An overview of the theory of molecular electronics can be
found in [12] and for semiconductor nanoscale devices see [16]. The aim of this
text is to provide some intuitive explanations of one particle Greens functions in
a compact form together with derivations of the expressions for the current and
the density matrix. It is not intended as a complete stand-alone tutorial, but
rather as a complement to [13],[16],[4],[3].
2.2 Preliminary Concept
A proper treatment of quantum transport is one of the most dicult problems
to deal with in solid state theory. With aggressive device scaling, quantum me-
chanical phenomenon has become prominent for these nano-scale devices and
hence quantum treatment in modeling has become a necessity. Self-consistent
Schrdinger-Poisson solver is generally used for nano devices at equilibrium or
very close to equilibrium. One would start by solving Schrdingers wave equation
for the eigenstates
2
2m
2
(r) qV (r)(r) = (r) (2.1)
The eigenstates are lled according to Fermis function, and their squared
amplitudes give the charge density, taking into account the spin degeneracy:
n(r) = 2
i
|
i
(r)|
2
f((
i
E
F
)/kT) (2.2)
where:
f(x) = (1 + exp(x))
1
(2.3)
The calculated charge density is then used in Poissons equation:
.(
s
(r)) = q(n(r) + N(r)) (2.4)
and the potential is substituted back into Equation (1) until convergence.
Once the potential and charge proles have been calculated, a suitable transport
model is used.
For devices far from equilibrium, the NEGF has become the method of choice.
For closed systems, (channel) the governing equation is
[EI H] {} = 0 (2.5)
Where H is the unperturbed Hamiltonian of the system, E is the energy of
electron, I is an identity matrix, is the eigenstate or the electron wave function.
If we consider an open system, we need to modify the governing equation as
following
[EI H ] {} = {S} (2.6)
Here, is the self-energy of dierent processes such as the contacts or the
scattering centers within the device. S is the source term which tells us how
electrons are getting into the system from outside or the contact.
Figure 2.1: System Contact with Channel
So, the wave function can be calculate as
{} = [G] {S} (2.7)
And
[G] = [EI H ]
1
(2.8)
G is called Greens function To calculate , one has to formulate the Hamil-
tonian matrix, H; then insert the self-energy, ; calculate the Greens function, G
and lastly multiply G with the source term. Rigorous denition and justication
are covered in the next section.
2.3 Greens functions
Discrete Schrodinger equation:
H |n = E |n (2.9)
We divide the Hamiltonian and wavefunction of the system into contact
(H
1,2,
|
1,2
) and device (H
d
, |
d
) subspaces:
We dene the Greens function
1
:
(E H)G(E) = I (2.10)
2.3.1 Why do we want to calculate the Greens function?
The Greens function gives the response of a system to a constant perturbation
|v in the Schrodinger equation:
H | = E | + |v (2.11)
The response to this perturbation is:
(E H) | = |v (2.12)
| = G(E) |v (2.13)
Why do we need the response to this type of perturbation? Well, it turns out
that its usually easier (see next section) to calculate the Greens function than
1
Others may (and do) use the opposite sign.
solve the whole eigenvalue problem
1
and most (all for the one-particle system)
properties of the system can be calculated from the Greens function. e.g., the
wavefunction of the contact |
2
can be calculated if we know the wavefunction
on the device |
d
. From third row of Eq. 2:
H
2
|
2
+
2
|
d
= E |
2
(2.14)
(E H
2
) |
2
=
2
|
d
(2.15)
|
2
= g
2
(E)
2
|
d
(2.16)
where g
2
is the Greens function of the isolated contact 2 ((E H
2
)g
2
= I).
It is important to note that since we have an innite system, we obtain two
types of solutions for the Greens functions
2
, the retarded and the advanced
3
solutions corresponding to outgoing and incoming waves in the contacts.
Notation: We will denote the retarded Greens function with G and the ad-
vanced with G
+
(and maybe G
R
and G
A
occasionally).Here, CAPITAL G denotes
the full Greens function and its sub-matrices G
1
, G
d
, G
1d
etc. Lowercase is used
for the Greens functions of the isolated subsystems, e.g., (E H
2
)g
2
= I.
Note that by using the retarded Greens function of the isolated contact (g
2
)
in Eq. 9 we obtain the solution corresponding to a outgoing wave in the contact.
Using the advanced Greens function (g
+
2
) would give the solution corresponding
to an incoming wave.
2.3.2 Self-Energy
The reason for calculating the Greens function is that it is easier that solving
the Schrodinger equation. Also, the Greens function of the device (G
d
) can be
1
Especially for innite systems.
2
When the energy coincides with energy band of the contacts there are two solutions cor-
responding to outgoing or incoming waves in the contacts.
3
In practice these two solutions are usually obtained by adding an imaginary part to the
energy. By taking the limit to zero of the imaginary part one of the two solutions is obtained.
If the limit 0
+
is taken the retarded solution is found, 0
gives the advanced. This can

be seen from the Fourier transform of the time dependent Greens function.
calculated separately without calculating the whole Greens function (G). From
the denition of the Greens function we obtain:
Selecting the three equations in the second column:
(E H
1
)G
1d

1
G
d
= 0 (2.17)
+
1
G
1d
+ (E H
d
)G
d

2
G
2d
= I (2.18)
(E H
2
)G
2d

2
G
d
= 0 (2.19)
We can solve Eqs. 11 and 13 for G
1d
andG
2d
:
G
1d
= G
1
1
G
d
(2.20)
G
2d
= G
2
2
G
d
(2.21)
substitution into Eq. 12 gives:
1
+ g
1
1
G
d
+ (E H
d
)G
d

+
2
g
2
2
G
d
= I (2.22)
from which (G
d
) is simple to nd:
G
d
= (E H
d

1

2
)
1
(2.23)
where
1
=
+
1
g
1
1
and
2
=
+
2
g
2
2
are the so called self-energies.
Loosely one can say that the eect of the contacts on the device is to add
the self-energies to the device Hamiltonian since when we calculate the Greens
function on the device we just calculate the Greens function for the eective
Hamiltonian H
effective
= H
d
+
1
+
2
.However, we should keep in mind that we
can only do this when we calculate the Greens function. The eigen-values and
-vectors of this eective Hamiltonian are not quantities we can interpret easily.
For normal contacts, the surface Greens functions g
1
and g
2
used to calculate
the self-energies are usually calculated using the periodicity of the contacts, this
method is described in detail in appendix B of [4] and in section 3 of [16].
2.3.3 The spectral function
Another important use of the Greens function is the spectral function:
A = i(G G
+
) (2.24)
which gives the DOS and all solutions to the Schrodinger equation!
To see this we rst note that for any perturbation |v we get two solutions
(
R
_
and
A
_
) to the perturbed Schrodinger equation:
(E H) |) = |v (2.25)
from the advanced and retarded Greens functions:
R
_
= G|v (2.26)
A
_
= G
+
|v (2.27)
The dierence of these solutions(
R
_
A
_
= (G G
+
) |v = iA|v) is a
solution to the Schrodinger equation:
(E H)(
R
_
A
_
) = (E H)(G G
+
) |v = (I I) |v = 0 (2.28)
which means that | = A|v is a solution to the Schrodinger equation for
any vector |v.
To show that the spectral function actually gives all solutions to the Schrodinger
equation is a little bit more complicated and we need the expansion of the Greens
function in the eigenbasis:
G =
1
E + i H
=
k
|k k|
E + i
k
(2.29)
where the is the small imaginary part (see footnote 3),|v s are all eigenvec-
tors
1
to H with the corresponding eigenvalues
k
. Expanding the spectral function
1
Normalized!
in the eigenbasis gives:
A = i(
1
E + i H

1
E i H
) (2.30)
A = i
k
|k k| (
1
E + i
k
1
E i
k
) (2.31)
A =
k
|k k|
2
(E
k
)
2
+
2
(2.32)
where is our innitesimal imaginary part of the energy. Letting go to zero
gives:
A = 2
k
(E
k
) |k k| (2.33)
(here (E
k
) is the delta function) which can be seen since
2
(E
k
)
2
+
2
goes to
zero everywhere but at E =
k
,integrating over E (with a test function) gives the
2(E
k
) factor. Eq. 27 shows that the spectral function gives us all solutions
to the Schrodinger equation.
2.4 Response to an incoming wave
In the non-equilibrium case, reservoirs with dierent chemical potentials will in-
ject electrons and occupy the states corresponding to incoming waves in the con-
tacts. Therefore, we want to nd the solutions corresponding to these incoming
waves.
Consider contact 1 isolated from the other contacts and the device. At a
certain energy we have solutions corresponding to an incoming wave that is totally
reected at the end of the contact. We will denote these solutions with |
1,n
where 1 is the contact number and n is a quantum number (we may have several
modes in the contacts). We can nd all these solutions from the spectral function
a
1
of the isolated contact (as described above).
Connecting the contacts to the device we can calculate the wavefunction on
the whole system caused by the incoming wave in contact 1. To do this we note
that a wavefunction should be of the form
2.5 Charge density matrix
In the non equilibrium case we are often interested in two quantities: the current
and the charge density matrix. Lets start with the charge density (which allows
us to use a self-consistent scheme to describe charging).
The charge density matrix is dened as:
=
k
f(k, ) |
k

k
| (2.34)
where the sum runs over all states with the occupation number f(E
k
, ) (pure
density matrix) (note the similarity with the spectral function A, in equilibrium
you nd the density matrix from A and not as described below). In our case, the
occupation number is determined by the reservoirs lling the incoming waves in
the contacts such that:
f(E
k
,
1
) =
1
1 + e
E
k
1
k
B
T
(2.35)
is the Fermi-Dirac function with the chemical potential
1
and temperature
(T) of the reservoir responsible for injecting the electrons into the contacts.
The wavefunction on the device given by an incoming wave in contact 1 (see
Eq. 32) is:
|
d,k
= G
d
+
1
|
1,k
(2.36)
Adding up all states from contact 1 gives:
d
[contact1] =
_

E=
dE
k
f(E,
1
)(E E
k
) |
d,k

d,k
| (2.37)
2.6 Boundary conditions
In quantum transport, the treatment of boundary conditions requires signi-
cantly more care than in classical physics due to the nonlocality of quantum
mechanics.[20],[11],[23],[17]. A common problem is to dene Ohmic leads. In the
context of NEGF, we may dene leads as Ohmic if the current is controlled by
the interior of the device rather than by serial resistances or interface states. This
denition has several implications. First, there must be a smooth transition in
the density of states of the leads and the device. Secondly, the same scattering
mechanisms must act within the leads and the device. Thirdly, the carrier dis-
tribution within the leads must be a suitably accelerated Fermi distribution to
reect current conservation. All of these conditions are necessary to avoid quan-
tum mechanical reections and pile up of charge at the interface.[21],[24] This is
illustrated in Figure . Figure shows a full NEGF calculation of the carrier density
in a homogeneously n-doped piece of GaAs for zero bias as a function of position.
Zero bias implies the quantum mechanical current from left to right to equal the
current from right to left. If the leads are treated ballistically, the carriers ac-
cumulate near the device boundaries due to the resistance they meet within the
medium. Only by employing the same scattering mechanisms and self-energies
everywhere, the formalism yields a constant carrier density throughout the sys-
tem. Figure illustrates the calculated carrier density in a biased n++-i-n+ GaAs
structure. If the carrier distribution within the leads is assumed to be in equilib-
rium, one obtains an articial pinch-o behavior; there is a depletion of carriers
near the source side and an accumulation near the drain side of the device.
2.7 The semiclassical limit
Does the NEGF formalism reduce to the semiclassical limit when quantum eects
play no role? [22],[15] For a realistic device structure, this is dicult to prove
rigorously but the following example provides practical evidence that, indeed, the
answer is armative.
Consider a symmetric n-i-n GaAs diode at room temperature and for zero bias.
Since such a device contains neither quantum wells nor barriers, one expects the
semi-classical Boltzmann equation to adequately describe the carrier density, as-
suming one includes impurity and phonon scattering in the standard fashion and
includes electron-electron scattering at least within the Hartree approximation
via the Poisson equation. We have performed a charge self-consistent NEGF
calculation that takes into account the same type of scattering mechanisms. As
shown in Figure , the NEGF electron density mimics faithfully the semiclassical
results.
Figure 2.2: (Color online) Left: Calculated carrier density for a homogeneously
doped semiconductor at zero bias, attached to leads with an equilibrium distri-
bution. The expected homogeneous density is obtained only if the leads include
the same type of scattering self energies as the device (red curve). Otherwise one
obtains articial charge accumulation (blue curve). Right: GaAs n-i-n structure
at room temperature under bias with asymmetric doping prole as indicated by
the grey lines.Once a current is owing. the charge distribution within the leads
must be a suitably shifted Fermi distribution that reects global current con-
servation (results shown by thc red curve). Otherwise, NEGF calculations yield
articial pinch-o eects (blue lines)
Figure 2.3: Comparison of fully self-consistent NEGF and semiclassical carrier
dynamics calculations for a standard GaAs resistor (50 nm n-i-n structure) at
zero bias and room temperature
Figure 2.4: (Color onlinc) Carrier dynamics calculation for 50 nm n-i-n structure
at room tcmperature with a 12 nm InGaAs quantum well as intrinsic zone at-
tached to eld-free GaAs leads of the same n-density.The applicd voltage is 150
mV across thc structure.Red curve: calculalion in terms of charge-self-consistent
semiclassical Boltzmann equation.Blue curve: Calculation in terms of strictly bal-
listic NEGF, equivalent to thc solution of Schrodinger equation of open system.
Black curve: Fully self-consistent NEGF calculation
2.8 Quantum well structures: Why NEGF is es-
sential
A nice illustration of the power of NEGF can be obtained by calculating the local
carrier distribution in a biased n-i-n structure that contains a quantum well. This
is illustrated in Figure for a n-i-n structure with a 12 nm InGaAs quantum well
in the intrinsic zone. The applied voltage across the 50 nm structure is 150
mV and we show 3 results. The red curve shows the semiclassical Boltzmann
results and yields the well-known accumulation of charge near the quantum well
barriers. This method completely ignores the existence of quantum mechanical
bound states and reects the classical Thomas-Fermi density. The blue curve
illustrates another limiting case, namely the solution of the Schrdinger equation in
the absence of any scattering. This reects a strictly coherent, energy conserving,
ballistic transport. In this case, the carrier density within the device is fully
determined by the overlap of the lead wave functions with the device. Since
there are no lead carriers below the GaAs band edge, the quantum well states
in the intrinsic region remain unoccupied. Thus, the electron density within
the quantum well only stems from (continuum state type) lead electrons which
explains the oscillatory density in the intrinsic region. Finally, the black curve
represents the full NEGF calculation. The inelastic scattering processes lead to
a capture of carriers into the quantum well states and lead to a carrier density in
the intrinsic zone that lies in between the semiclassical and the strictly ballistic
quantum mechanical calculations.
This result can be further illustrated by plotting the energy resolved density
for the case of zero bias. Figure depicts this density for a strictly ballistic
calculation that actually represents a NEGF calculation in the limit of all impu-
rity, phonon, and interface scattering self energies set equal to zero. Note that
the Poisson equation is still solved self-consistently with the Schrdinger equation
even in this case. Figure , on the other hand, shows a complete NEGF calculation
that clearly illustrates the carrier capture into the rst and second bound state of
the quantum well. Due to the charging eects caused by the capture, the bottom
of the quantum well raises in energy so that both states actually form resonances
that slightly overlap with the lead states.
Figure 2.5: Contour graph of calculated energy resolved electron density for 50
nm n-i-n structure at room temperature with a 12 nm lnGaAs quantum well as
intrinsic zone for zero applied bias. The density scale is the analogous to the
one in Fig. 5. but for lower doping. (a) Strictly ballistic NEGF calculation (no
scattering included). (b) Fully self-consistent NEGF calculation
Figure 2.6: Contour graph of calculated energy resolved electron density for 50
nm n-i-n structure at room temperature with a 12 nm InGaAs quantum well as
intrinsic zone for zero applied bias. (a) Fully self consistent NEGF calculation.
(b) NEGF calculation with coupling
2.9 Limits and simplications in NEGF
As mentioned in the introduction, the NEGF formalism guarantees conserva-
tion of important physical principles only if all Greens functions are evaluated
exactly from a many-body standpoint. It is a very signicant weakness of the
method that even plausible approximations can fail badly. Generally, it is di-
cult to introduce simplications that do not violate basic conservation laws. As
an example, we discuss the so-called decoupling approximation.[10] The NEGF
formalism couples the energy of states with their occupation via 4 coupled integro-
dierential equations. If the carrier density is not too high, it seems plausible to
decouple the equations of and . This approximation can lead to a violation of
Paulis principle, however, since there is no mechanism that prevents the occur-
rence of over-occupied states (i.e. states with occupancy higher than permitted
by the Pauli principle).[10] To exemplify this situation, we consider the same
GaAs-InGaAs-GaAs n-i-n structure as before, but with a slightly higher carrier
concentration in the n-region. Figure shows the energy resolved carrier density
of the n-i-n structure for zero bias, as calculated by the full NEGF approach. By
contrast, Figure shows the result of the decoupling of Greens functions, leading
to unphysically high occupation of the lowest bound state.
2.10 THz quantum cascade lasers: a classics for
NEGF
An important question that we have not addressed so far is whether fully self-
consistent NEGF calculations actually agree with experiment. We have applied
this formalism to GaAs/AlGaAs THz QCLs and included impurity, phonon, inter-
face roughness scattering in the self-consistent Born approximation. In addition,
the electron-electron scattering has been included both in the Hartree approxi-
mation as well as within the so-called GW approximation. For details, we refer
to [18]. Importantly, the calculations contain no tting parameter. Figure 8 de-
picts the calculated current-voltage characteristics of such a QCL for a particular
sheet doping density, together with experimental data.[2] As one see, theory and
experiment agree very well with one another up to the voltage where lasing starts
and both thermal as well as hot electron eects become relevant that have not
been included in the calculations.
Figure 2.7: Comparison between experimental (Ref. [27]) and calculated (Ref.
([13]) current-voltage characteristics for AIGaAs/GaAs quantum cascade struc-
ture
2.11 Comparison between NEGF and Monte -
Carlo
2.11.1 Monte-Carlo
Monte Carlo simulation performs calculation by building models of possible re-
sults by substituting a range of values-a probability distribution-for any factor
that has inherent uncertainty. It then calculates results over and over, each time
using a dierent set of random values from the probability functions. Depending
upon the number of uncertainties and the ranges specied for them, a Monte
Carlo simulation could involve thousands or tens of thousands of recalculations
before it is complete. Monte Carlo simulation produces distributions of possible
outcome values. By using probability distributions, variables can have dierent
probabilities of dierent outcomes occurring. Probability distributions are a much
more realistic way of describing uncertainty in variables of a device performance
analysis.
Through the Non-Equilibrium Greens Function (NEGF) formalism, quantum-
scale device simulation can be performed with the inclusion of electron-phonon
scattering. However, the simulation of realistically sized devices under the NEGF
formalism typically requires prohibitive amounts of memory and computation
time. Two of the most demanding computational problems for NEGF simulation
involve mathematical operations with structured matrices called semiseparable
matrices.
Nonequilibrium Greens function method is a very general scheme to include
coherent quantum mechanics and incoherent scattering with phonons and device
imperfections self-consistently. However, it is numerically very demanding and
cannot be used for systematic device parameter scans. For this reason, we also
implement the approximate, numerically e?cient ensemble Monte Carlo method
and assess its applicability on the above mentioned transport problems.
A research paper [2] shows that the approximate treatment of coherent tunnel-
ing and leakage into continuum states limits the applicability of the EMC method
on transport regimes that are dominated by incoherent scattering. When all de-
vice states that contribute to transport are clearly non-degenerate, results of the
current density obtained by the EMC method quantitatively agree with NEGF
results and experiment. Also the simulated spectral gain pro?le is in good agree-
ment for both methods. This is in particular important because the numerical
load of NEGF calculations exceeds the load of the EMC method tremendously
and typically prohibits a systematic improvement of QCL designs.
2.12 Why nonequilibrium Green functions?
Let us briey describe its main features:
The method has as its main ingredient the Green function, which is a func-
tion of two spacetime coordinates. From knowledge of this function one can
calculate time-dependent expectation values such as currents and densities,
electron addition and the total energy of the system.
In the absence of external elds the nonequilibrium Green function method
reduces to the equilibrium Green function method which has had imporatnt
applications in quantum chemistry.
Nonequilibrium Green functions can be applied to both extended and nite
systems.
The nonequilibrium Green function can handle strong external elds non-
perturbatively. The electron-electron interactions are taken into account by
innite summations.
The approximations within the nonequilibrium Green function method can
be chosen such that macroscopic conservation laws as those of particle num-
ber, momentum and angular momentum are automatically satised
Dissipative processes and memory eects in transport that occur due to
electron-electron interactions and coupling of electronic to nuclear vibra-
tions can be clearly diagrammatically analyzed
2.13 Conclusions
The NEGF formalism provides the framework of choice for consistent carrier dy-
namics calculations of open nanosystems where quantum eects and incoherent
scattering play a comparable role. When implemented with care, it reproduces
the results of the semiclassical Boltzmann equation in the limit where quantum
eects such as resonant tunneling and interference are unimportant. By deni-
tion, it also reproduces the solutions of the Schrdinger or Lippmann-Schwinger
equation when inelastic scattering is turned o. A disadvantage of the method
is the fact that charge and current conservation, and even Paulis principle are
not automatically satised once seemingly reasonable approximations are intro-
duced. Scattering vertices must necessarily be taken into account to innite
order, for example, to strictly obey current conservation and it is dicult to
achieve a numerically satisfactory convergence. Approximations are unavoidable,
though, once one seeks predictions for realistic nano-devices, simply due to the
excessive numerical eort required to solve the full set of Keldysh equations self-
consistently. In fact, it will take some time before quantitative NEGF solutions
for time-dependent quantum transport calculations become numerically feasible.
In comparison with semiclassical calculations, much more eort is required to
properly take into account the physics of contacts and the contact-device cou-
pling. This is a consequence of the nonlocal nature of quantum mechanics and
the nature of scattering solutions in open quantum systems.
Chapter 3
QDIPs density of states modeling
3.1 DWELL QDIP Structure
A theoretical model of pyramidal-shaped InAs quantum dots placed in an InGaAs
quantum well, which is buried in a GaAs matrix, is shown in [[7]]. The model of
the DWELL is based on a Bessel function expansion of the wave function. The
model can estimate the ground state of the quantum dot. For the higher states
in the quantum well, the model has to be modied to account for the free motion
of electrons perpendicular to the growth direction.
The DWELL detector grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxy, reported in Ref [1],
consists of a ten-period active region of 6nm In
0.15
Ga
0.85
As, 2.4 ML of InAs, 6
nm In
0.15
Ga
0.85
As, and 50 nm GaAs, as shown in Fig. 3.1. The quantum dots
are placed in the In
0.15
Ga
0.85
As quantum well which is in turn surrounded by the
GaAs region.
The TEM image of the DWELL heterostructure is shown in following Fig 3.2.
[1]
The darkest region is the InAs quantum dot. The quantum dots are situated
in the upper half of the quantum well and have a conical shape whose base
dimension is of 11 nm and height is of 6nm. The QD material InAs is deposited
over the substrate and due to the lattice mismatch between deposited material
and substrate, the strain is built up gradually. After a critical thickness (2.4 ML)
is reached, the two-dimensional growth changes into a three-dimensional one and
31
CHAPTER 3. QDIPS DENSITY OF STATES MODELING 32
Figure 3.1: Cross-section schematic of a 10 layer InAs/InGaAs quantum dot in a
well detector,
Figure 3.2: Cross-section TEM image of a single QD layer of DWELL [14]
dislocation free QD islands begin to grow.
Figure 3.3: Cross-section TEM image of an InAs/InGaAs DWELL Heterostruc-
tures [14]
Figure 3.4: Theoretical Modeling of DWELL QDIP Structure
For numerical analysis we have modeled the DWELL device as shown in Fig
3.1. 60% of the band gap dierence between InAs and GaAs is counted as the
conduction band oset .The band osets calculated are 477 meV between InAs
and In
0.15
Ga
0.85
As and 93 meV between In
0.15
Ga
0.85
As and GaAs. The conduc-
tion band edge of the In0.15Ga0.85As is selected as reference energy level. A
linear interpolation between two binary values is used to calculate the eective
masses in the dierent materials. The eective masses used for GaAs, InAs and
In
0.15
Ga
0.85
As are 0.067, 0.027and 0.061 (in terms of electron mass) respectively.
Figure 3.5: Conduction band osets and energy levels of QDWELL [14]
For analysis, the device is thought of consisting of array of identical cylinders,
where each cylinder contains one quantum dot. To calculate Hamiltonian of the
device, a cross section along the cylinder axis is taken and disintegrated into a
large number of equally spaced grids. The nite dierence method is used to
solve the dierential equation governing Greens function. The retarded Greens
function of the system is dened as
[E H
op

r
(E)]G
r
(x, x
, y, y
, E) = (x x
)(y y
) (3.1)
Here E is the total energy of electron,
r
is the self energy and H
op
, the Hamil-
tonian operator of the system, is given by
H
op
= .

2
2m(x, y)
+ V (x, y) (3.2)
Here V(x,y) is the potential energy seen by the electron and m(x,y) is the
Figure 3.6: Cross section of a cylinder is disintegrated into a number of grids
eective mass. The diagonal elements of spectral function is given by
diag(A(x, y, E)) = 2Im[G
r
(x, y; E)] (3.3)
The density of states, which is the number of states per unit energy per unit
volume, is given by
N(E) =
1
2
Tr(A(x, y; E)) (3.4)
3.2 Numerical Analysis
The quantum dot photodetectors under our analysis have an estimated dot den-
sity of 5 10
10
cm
2
, and the average spacing between two adjacent dots is about
60nm. Due to this relatively large distance, in our simplied model of the quan-
tum dot photo-detector, the neighboring dots are assumed to be vertically and
laterally decoupled, and a quantum dot is modeled so as to be surrounded by
semi-innite contact composed of InGaAs and GaAs layer, and InAs wetting
layer. The contact can be thought of being a continuation of cylinder radius and
the quantum dot exists at the center of the cylinder.
Modeling quantum dot photo-detectors in such a way gives the benet of ex-
ploiting the property of translational invariance of the contact. The Hamiltonian
matrix for the device, which is tridiagonal and Hermitian, is formed by nite
dierence method and is given by
H =
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
x1

1
0 . . . 0
1

x2

2
. . .
.
.
.
0
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Nx1
0 . . . . . .
Nx1

x(Nx)
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
Here,
x
(i) =
_
_
U
y1
+ 2tx
(i)
+ 2ty
1
ty
1
0 0
ty
1
U
y2
+ 2tx
(i)
+ 2ty
2
ty
2
0 0
.
.
. ty
2
.
.
.
.
.
.
ty
Ny1
0 ty
Ny1
U
y(Ny)
+ 2tx
(i)
+ 2ty
Ny
_
_
(3.5)
(
i) =
_
_
tx
1,i
0 0
0 tx
2,i
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
0 tx
Ny,i
_
_
(3.6)
3.3 Calculation of Self Energy:
To illustrate the self-energy calculation which accounts for the device leads, we
consider the eect of coupling the active device Hamiltonian to the drain. The
innite Hamiltonian and its Greens function can be partitioned as follows:
In the above equation, the subscript lead indicates innite block of matrices
(H matrix and G matrix). The matrix block we only care about is G
device
as we
are not interested in the Greens function within the Lead or Source. G
device
can
be expressed in terms of known quantities as follows:
G
device
= [EI h
device

r
]
1
(3.7)
Where the self energy term is
r
=
_
_
0 0
0 0

_
_
_
EI
Nx+1
0
EI
Nx+2

0
0

_
_
1 _
_
0
0 0

_
(3.8)
For evaluating the matrix product in above equation, we only need the rst
block of the inverse of the infnite matrix associated with the Lead. Moreover, the
diagonal blocks of this innite matrix are repeated due to translational invariance
within the Lead.
Nx
=
Nx+1
=
Nx+2
= (3.9)
Using this property, and partitioning the matrix, a close form of the matrix
for the rst block of the inverse (denoted by g
c
) of the innite matrix, can be
obtained as
I = g
c
[EI
Nx+1

c
] (3.10)
Once g
c
hasbeensolved, wehavetheselfenergyterm
r
=
_
_
g
c
+
0 0
0 0 0
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
0 g
c
+
_
_
(3.11)
t
x
is the coupling energy between adjacent grid points along x direction, and
is given by
t
x
=

2
2m
x
a
2
(3.12)
g
c
is the retarded greens function of a unit cell of the contact, and is solved
from the recursive relation
g
1
c
= ((E + i)I H
c

c

+
) (3.13)
It is noteworthy that only the last vertical slice of the device couples to the
Lead. Therefore, the self-energy for the Lead has a single nonzero block that
perturbs the last diagonal block of the device Hamiltonian. To solve for g
c
, a
basis transformation has to be performed. The eigenvectors of EI diagonalize
g
c
simultaneously. Therefore we change the basis from 2D real space to a basis
that is composed of the eigenvectors of EI (equivalent to a mode-space
transformation at the boundary). This reduces the equation related to gc to a
set of decoupled quadratic equations that can be solved for the diagonal entries
g
c
, in the transformed representation. It should be noted that each of these
equations results in two roots. The root representing outgoing waves is selected
as we are ultimately interested in obtaining the retarded Greens function for the
device. An inverse basis transformation is then applied to evaluate g
c
in 2D real
space. A similar procedure is invoked to solve for the self-energy part associated
with the Lead of other side. The nal size of the self-energy matrix is (N
x
N
y
)
2
for the real-space solution and (N
x
)
2
for the decoupled mode-space solution.
3.4 Computational Challenges
The device that we have dealt with is of GaAs/InGaAs/InAs heterostructure.
For numerical analysis in FDM (Finite Dierence Method), we have disintegrated
the device structure into a large number of grids. For instance, a 40nm by 30nm
cross section of the device was divided into near about 30000 grids. A pictorial
representation of the device with grid division is as follows:
Figure 3.7: Device structure with grid division
The actual number of grid is too enormous to show in picture. In simulation,
any two neighboring grids, (either in x direction or in y direction) are separated
by 0.2nm distance. Thus in the entire device, there were a total of 30,000 grids.
Along X axis - number of grid per row is
30nm
0.2nm
= 150 grids
Along Y axis - number of grid per row is
40nm
0.2nm
= 200 grids
Hence total no. of grid in the whole device = 200 x 150 = 30,000 We will
justify the reason of taking such a mammoth number of grids although the device
somewhere later, but for instance, lets take a look at what are the problems asso-
ciated with calculation that involve such a large number of grid points. In nite
dierence method, the matrix size of the Hamiltonian of a device is proportional
to the square of the total number of grid point representing the entire device. For
example, if we divide the device in 6 grids, the corresponding Hamiltonian will
be of 6 x 6 size. Each diagonal element of the Hamiltonian will correspond to a
unique grid points. An illustration of the same is as follows:
Figure 3.8: Device cross section
Corresponding
H =
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
g1 a 0 0
a g2 b 0
b g3 c
c g4 d
0 d g5 e
0 e g6
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
The diagonal value of the Hamiltonian corresponds to each of the grid point
taken on the device cross section. However, the o-diagonal elements are ap-
pearing due to coupling between the near-most grid points. Now, for the actual
device, on which we have taken a considerable number of grid point in order to
compute its property as precisely as possible, will yield a Hamiltonian having size
of 30,000 x 30,000. This is an incredibly large matrix which will require a huge
memory space. In fact, in a computer with moderate conguration, a MATLAB
program cant declare a matrix which exceeds 10,000 x 10,000 in size, let alone
any operation we can make with it. The built in memory reserved for a MAT-
LAB program overows while storing the data of such an enormous matrix. The
numerical analysis is thus stymied at the beginning of our thesis. We had to nd
a way out to circumvent the problem of memory run-out, and that constituted
how we confronted our very rst challenge.
3.5 How to confront the challenges
There are several ways out to solve the problem of memory run-out. We will
discuss them one by one, and also have a glance on the associated limitation that
each of the way poses on our ability to analyze the device appropriately.
3.5.1 Reduce the number of grid
This is probably the very rst (and the most naive, however!) idea that may come
across ones mind in such a case of limited computer memory. But it should be
kept in mind that the separation between adjacent grids would have to be such
that even the thinnest region of the device cross section is to be covered by
sucient number of grid points.
In our device, the thinnest region is the wetting layer of InAs, whose thickness
is of 0.5 nm. Hence, if grid separation is more than 0.2 nm, the wetting layer
will contain insucient number of grid, thereby the eect that the wetting layer
exerts on the device characteristics will not be properly reected in the simulated
model.
3.5.2 Non-uniform distribution of grid point
The non-uniform distribution of grid point throughout the device can be a smart
and intelligent way to make an economical use of available memory space while
incorporating the eect of all the region simultaneously. In fact, Comsol simu-
lator provides us with the feature of taking dense mesh points in some region
whereas less dense or less concentrated mesh points in some other region as per
the requirement of the user. However, in numerical analysis method performed
in MATLAB, we have to provide with formula that rightly ts for non-uniform
distribution of grid point. In contrast, the formula we could have laid our hand
on was derived for uniform distribution of grid point. We, thus, were left with
the choice of formulating a new equation for our own pursuit, or leave this way
of solution as an unviable one.
3.5.3 Disintegrating a large matrix into several smaller
matrices
Segregating a large matrix into several smaller ones can be another potential
solution to our problem. Our mathematical analysis frequently needed matrix
inversion operation, which is considered one of the most tedious and memory
expansive job for a calculating machine. Since the matrix we dealt with is incred-
ibly large in size, a direct command of matrix inversion (i.e. inv (Matrix)) would
denitely end up with memory overow. An alternative way of inverting a matrix
is as follows: Let, A is a matrix, and B is the inverse of the matrix A. So, A*B=
I, where I is an identity matrix of same size as A or B is. If a command in MAT-
LAB is given as follows: B=A/I; Then MATLAB actually performs a solution of
linear equation system which is much less hectic and time saving process.
For instance, if A=
_
2 7
1 5
_
Then A
1
can be calculated as follows:
A
1
= B =
_
b1 b2
b3 b4
_
From here, we can write:
_
2 7
1 5
_
_
b1 b2
b3 b4
_
=
_
1 0
0 1
_
So
_
2 7
1 5
_
_
b1
b3
_
=
_
1
0
_
That is, 2 b1 +7 b2 = 1 And, b1 + 5 b3 = 0
And also
_
2 7
1 5
_
_
b2
b4
_
=
_
0
1
_
That is, 2 b2 + 7 b4 = 0 And , b2 + 5 b4 = 1 Thus, instead of nding the
inverse matrix altogether, we can individually nd every element of the inverse
matrix and then arrange all the calculated elements in order.
3.5.4 Dealing with Sparse Matrix other than conventional
matrix
Sparse matrix are those, whose elements are mostly zero. A zero dominated sparse
matrix can easily be manipulated to save memory since its zero elements do not
need a separate memory space to occupy. The Hamiltonian that is concerned
in our device simulation is a sparse matrix. It contains non-zero elements along
the diagonal and o-diagonal position. The remaining elements are zero (unless
any special circumstances appear, like: boundary condition). In fact, the sparse
matrix springs o in almost all device simulation, since we usually consider a
tight binding model of the device (a model where wave function of electron at a
certain location is only inuenced by nearmost grid points, coupling occurs only
between neighboring grid points)
3.5.5 Using all the processors in a computer in a parallel
process
By default, a MATLAB program engage only one core in a computer for com-
putational purpose at a time. But special arrangement and coding can be done
so as to compel all the available processors simultaneously and in a parallel way,
which saves time to a great deal. A detail description of How self-parallelism can
be done in a MATLAB program can be viewed from the following website:
a) Parallel Computing Toolbox Perform parallel computations on multicore
computers, GPUs, and computer clusters
http://www.mathworks.com/products/parallel-computing/
b) Multicore - Parallel processing on multiple cores
http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/leexchange/13775
3.6 Result- Our Findings
A group of researchers led by Professor Sanjay Krishna reported their Spectral
response measurements performed on the DWELL detectors with a Nicolet 870
FTIR spectrometer and a Keithley 428 current-amplier. [1] Figure 3.9 shows the
spectral response obtained from six detectors in which the width of the bottom
InGaAs well was varied from 10 to 60 angstrom. The top InGaAs cap layer was
unchanged to minimize changes in the dimensions of the dots. As expected, the
operating wavelength of the detector showed a monotonic red shift from 7.2 to 11
m from samples A to F. This is signicant since it provides us with a method of
controlling the operating wavelength of a QD detector. Note that in the sample
with the largest well, there is a broad shoulder on the shorter wavelength side,
which is possibly due to a transition from the ground state in the dot to a higher
lying state in the InGaAs quantum well.
Professor Krishna and his collaborators obtained the responsivity from a 15-
stack quantum DWELL detector. The measured responsivity was divided by a
factor of 4 to account for the scattering in the substrate. Far-infrared (FIR) spec-
tral response measurements were also undertaken in collaboration with Pereras
group [9]. The data were obtained using a Perkin-Elmer system 2000 FTIR with
two sets of beamsplitters and windows and were corrected by background spectra.
The resulting three-color response is shown in gure 3.10. The rst two
MIR peaks, i.e. 10 and 5 m, have previously been observed by the same re-
searchers group on similar detector structures [9]. The researchers group believes
that the peak at 10m(124meV < Ec) is probably a transition from a bound
state in the dot to a bound state in the quantum well, whereas the peak around
5m(250meV > Ec) is possibly a transition from a state in the dot to a quasi-
bound state close to the top of the well as shown in the inset to gure . A FIR
peak centred around 25m was also observed in these detectors and is shown in
gure 3.11. The researchers group believes that this peak could possibly be due
to transitions between two states in the QD since the calculated energy spacing
between the dot levels is about 50-60 meV (20 25m).
Figure 3.9: Progressive red shift in the peak operating wavelength of the detector
as the width of the bottom InGaAs is increased from 10 to 60 angstrom. The
spectre has been vertically displaced for clarity. [7]
Figure 3.10: Multicolour response in the mid-wave, long-wave and very long-
wavelength regimes with the associated transitions in the inset.[11]
Figure 3.11: The very long-wave infrared (VLWIR) response was observed till 80
K [23]
3.7 Comparing Experimental results with sim-
ulated ones
The reported structure in [8] has three color response with peaks at wavelengths of
5, 11, and 25m. The corresponding energy transitions E due to photon absorption
at these wavelengths are approximately 250, 113 and 50 meV.
E =
hc
e
eV (3.14)
E
1243
(m)
meV (3.15)
Our calculated DOS for DWELL structure with bottom quantum well of 6nm
(symmetric DWELL structure) is shown in Fig. 3.1. From the calculated DOS,
we get E0, E1, E2, E3 (corresponding to each abrupt rise in DOS prole) as
-270.3meV,-28meV, 64meV, and 112meV and results in E1 - E0, E2 - E1 and E3
- E2 as 242.3meV ( 250meV ), 92meV ( 124meV ) and 48meV ( 50meV ).
Thus it explains the tri-band operation satisfactorily.
Figure 3.12: DOS prole for bottom well width=6nm
The experimentally measured spectral response of the asymmetric DWELL
with increasing bottom well width shows a monotonic red shift [Ref: Quantum
dots-in-a-well infrared photodetectors, Sanjay Krishna]. This result can be intu-
itively expected because increasing Quantum Well width means decreasing the
connement for electron and hence the neighboring energy levels comes closer,
thus leading to smaller wavelength of photon absorption.
Figure 3.13: Eect of changing well width on DOS
A rigorous theoretical analysis of DOS for various Well width structure yields
the same expected result. From gure 3.13, we see, the width of Quantum
Well hardly has any prominent eect on the position of ground state energy,
though it signicantly changes other levels, causing a monotonic shift of DOS
towards lower energy level with gradually increasing Well width. An interesting
observation is that, the higher energy levels are getting closer to ground state at
a rate faster than lower energy level, thus reducing the relative distance between
any two energy levels we consider for transition. The corresponding energy levels
are shown in table 1 and their dierences are shown (in meV) in table 2.
Figure 3.14: Eect of changing well width on DOS
Energy in meV 3nm Well 4nm Well 6nm Well
E
0
-270.3 -270.3 -270.3
E
1
-23 -26 -28
E
2
79 74 64
Energy dierence in meV E
1
E
0
E
2
E
0
E
2
E
1
3 nm Well 247.3 349.3 102
4 nm Well 244.3 344.3 100
6 nm Well 242.3 334.3 92
It is a point of interest to see how dierent sites of the device contribute to
dierent energy states. Figure 3.15 shows the potential prole for the DWELL
model with 6 nm bottom half Quantum Well.
From gure 3.16, we see, at the ground level (E= -278meV), energy state
distribution takes a triangular form reveals the fact that at this bottom-most
energy level, quantum state is provided solely by the quantum dot.
Though at E = -62 meV, provision of energy state by the device is of minimal
value (of order 10
8
) and hence has no signicant number of state in practice,
Figure 3.15: Potential Prole
Figure 3.16: LDOS at E=-270.3208mev
we nevertheless add here a state distribution (Figure 3.16) to point out the
curious fact that as we are departing more and more from ground state energy,
energy state are getting spread wider and wider from their previous condense
location at quantum dot site. The previous triangle shape state distribution now
assumes an almost dumble like shape.
Figure 3.17: LDOS at E=-61.8225mev
From gure 3.18, we can see, at the rst continuum energy level (E= -15meV),
the density of state is concentrated at wetting layer of InAs
Figure 3.19) reveals that, at second continuum energy level (E= 77meV), the
energy states resides prominently at InGaAs Quantum Well sites.
Figure 3.18: LDOS at E=-15mev
Figure 3.19: LDOS at E=77mev
Chapter 4
Dipole Moment and Absorption
Coecient
4.1 Transitional Dipole Moment
The Transition dipole moment or Transition moment, usually denoted
nm
for a
transition between an initial state, m, and a nal state, n, is the electric dipole
moment associated with the transition between the two states. In general the
transition dipole moment is a complex vector quantity that includes the phase
factors associated with the two states. An oscillating electric or magnetic mo-
ment can be induced in an atom or molecular entity by an electromagnetic wave.
Its interaction with the electromagnetic eld is resonant if the frequency of the
latter corresponds to the energy dierence between the initial and nal states
of a transition (E = h). The amplitude of this moment is referred to as the
transition moment. Its direction gives the polarization of the transition, which
determines how the system will interact with an electromagnetic wave of a given
polarization, while the square of the magnitude gives the strength of the inter-
action due to the distribution of charge within the system. The SI unit of the
transition dipole moment is the Coulomb-meter (Cm); a more conveniently sized
unit is the Debye (D).
The interaction energy, U, between a system of charged particles and an elec-
53
4. Dipole Moment and Absorption Coecient 54
tric eld, E, is given by:
U = E (4.1)
The dipole moment is dened for a collection of charges by
=
i
q
i
r
i
(4.2)
Where r
i
is the position vector of charged particle i. The expectation value
of the interaction energy is
U =
_

n
_
.

E
_
n
d (4.3)
If we assume that the magnitude of the electric eld is constant over the length
of the molecule (and that is nite only over the length of the molecule) we can
write
U = .E (4.4)
where
=
_

n

n
d (4.5)
i.e. the strength of interaction between a distribution of charges and an electric
eld depends on the dipole moment of the charge distribution.
In order to obtain the strength of interaction that causes a transition between
two states, the transition dipole moment is used rather than the dipole moment.
For a transition between and initial state,
i
, to a nal state
f
, the transition
dipole moment integral is.
fi
=
_

f

i
d (4.6)
the probability for a transition (as measured by the absorption coecient) is
proportional to
fi

fi
fi
may be positive, negative or imaginary. If
fi
then the interaction energy is
zero and no transition occurs - the transition is said to be electric dipole forbidden.
Conversely, if
fi
islarge, thenthetransitionprobabilityandabsorptioncoefficientarelarge.
The intensity of the transition is therefore proportional to
k

j
d
2
The dipole moment operator for an electron in one dimension is
fi
= e
_

f
x
i
dx = e
f
|x|
i
(4.7)
Notes on transitional (dipole) moment: 1. The absorption probability for lin-
early polarized light is proportional to the cosine square of the angle between the
electric vector of the electromagnetic wave and ; light absorption will be maxi-
mized if they are parallel, and no absorption will occur if they are perpendicular.
2. It is frequently said that a transition is polarized along the direction of its
transition moment and this direction is called the polarization direction of the
transition. 3. In the case of a doubly degenerate nal state f, each of the two
components at the same energy has a transition moment and the two moments
dene a plane. The transition is then said to be polarized in that plane, which
also denes its polarizationdirection(s). This is typically the case for some of the
transitions in highly symmetrical molecules.
4.2 Optical Transition using Fermis Golden Rule
Let us consider
1
a semiconductor illuminated by light. The interaction between
photons and electrons in the semiconductor can be described by the Hamiltonian
[5]
H =
1
2m
0
(p eA)
2
+ V (r) (4.8)
Where m
0
is the free electron mass, e = e| for electrons, A is the vector
potential accounting for the presence of the electromagnetic eld, and V(r) is the
periodic crystal potential. The above Hamiltonian can be understood because
1
One of the authors, Mr. Tonmoy Kumar Bhowmick was inspired by his thesis supervisor
Dr. Farseem Mannan Mohammedy to take the course Semiconductor Device Theory from which
he learnt a great deal about semiconductor physics. He is grateful to his thesis supervisor for
his inpiration and encouragement
taking the partial derivatives of H with respect to the momentum variable p and
the position vector r will lead to the classical equation of motion described by
the Lorentz force equation in the presence of an electric and a magnetic eld.
4.3 The Electron-Photon Interaction Hamilto-
nian
The Hamiltonian can be expanded into
H =
p
2
2m
0
+ V (r)
e
2m
0
(p A + A p) +
e
2
A
2
2m
0
= H
o
+ H
(4.9)
Where H
o
is the unperturbed Hamiltonian and H is considered as a pertur-
bation due to light:
H
0
=
p
2
2m
0
+ V (r) (4.10)
H
=
e
m
0
A p (4.11)
The Coulomb gauge
A = 0 (4.12)
Has been used such that p.A=A.p, noting that p = (/i) . The last term
e
2
A
2
2m
0
is much smaller than the terms linear in A, since absolute value of eA is
much smaller than absolute p for most practical optical eld intensities. This can
be checked using
p = k /a
0
(4.13)
Where a
0
5.5angstrom is the lattice constant. Assuming the vector potential
for the optical electric eld of the form
A = eA
0
cos(k
op
r t) (4.14)
A = e
A
0
2
e
ik
op
r
e
it
+ e
A
0
2
e
ik
op
r
e
+it
(4.15)
Where k
op
is the wave vector, is the optical angular frequency and e is a
unit vector in the direction of the optical electric eld, we have
E(r, t) =
A
t
(4.16)
E(r, t) = eA
0
sin(k
op
r t) (4.17)
H(r, t) =
1
A (4.18)
H(r, t) =
1
k
op
eA
0
sin(k
op
r t) (4.19)
since the scalar potential vanishes for the optical eld. The interaction Hamil-
tonian H(r, t) can be written as
H
(r, t) =
e
m
0
A(r, t) p (4.20)
H
(r, t) = H
(r)e
it
+ H
+
(r)e
it
(4.21)
where H
(r, t) is
H
(r, t) =
eA
0
e
ik
op
r
2m
0
e p (4.22)
4.4 Transition Rate due to Electron-Photon In-
teraction
The transition rate for the absorption of a photon, assuming an electron is initially
at state Ea, is given by Fermis golden rule and has been derived in Section 3.7
using the time-dependent perturbation theory:
W
abs
=
2
_
b
a
_
2
(E
b
E
a
) (4.23)
Where E
b
> E
a
has been assumed. Similarly the transition rate for the
emission of photon if an electron is initially at state E
b
is
W
abs
=
2
_
a
b
_
2
(E
a
E
b
+ ) (4.24)
The total upward transition rate per unit volume (s-1cm-3) in the crystal,
taking into account the probability that state a is occupied and state b is
empty, is
R
ab
=
2
V
k
a
k
b
2
ba
2
(E
a
E
b
)f
a
(1 f
b
) (4.25)
Where we sum over the initial and nal states and assume that the Fermi-
Dirac distribution
f
a
=
1
1 + e
(E
a
E
f
)/k
B
T
(4.26)
is the probability that the state a is occupied. A similar expression holds for
f
b
, where E
a
is replaced by E
b
, and (1 f
b
) is the probability that the state b
is empty. The prefactor 2 takes into account the sum over spins, and the matrix
element H
ba
is given by
H
ba
=
_
b
(r)
a
_
(4.27)
H
ba
=
_

b
(r)H
(r)
a
(r)d
3
r (4.28)
With |H
ba| = |H
ab|. The downward transition rate per unit volume (s-1cm-

3) in the crystal can be written:
R
ba
=
2
V
k
a
k
b
2
ba
2
(E
a
E
b
+ )f
b
(1 f
a
) (4.29)
Noting the even property of the delta function, (x) = (x), the net upward
transition rate per unit volume can be written as
R = R
ab
R
ba
(4.30)
R =
2
V
k
a
k
b
2
ba
2
(E
a
E
b
)(f
a
f
b
) (4.31)
4.5 Optical Absorption Coecient
The absorption coecient (1/cm) in the crystal is the fraction of photons ab-
sorbed per unit distance:
=
no. of photons absorbed per unit volume per second
no. of photons injected per unit area per second
(4.32)
The injected number of photons per unit area per second is the optical inten-
sity S (W/cm2) divided by the energy of a photon ; therefore,
() =
R
S/
(4.33)
() =

n
r
2
A
2
0
/2c
2
V
k
a
k
b
2
| e p
ba
|
2
(E
a
E
b
)(f
a
f
b
) (4.34)
Using the dipole (long wavelength) approximation that A(r) = Ae
ik.r
A
We nd that the matrix elements can be written in terms of the momentum
matrix element:
ba
= e b |r| a = er
ba
(4.35)
H
ba
= b |er E| a =
ba
E (4.36)
p = m
0
d
dt
r =
m
0
i
(rH
0
H
0
r) (4.37)
H
ba
=
_
b
e
m
0
A(r) p
a
_
(4.38)
H
ba
=
e
i
A b |rH
0
H
0
r| a (4.39)
H
ba
=
e(E
a
E
b
)
i
A b |r| a (4.40)
H
ba
= iA b |er| a (4.41)
H
ba
=
ba
E (4.42)
The absorption coecient becomes
() =

n
r
c
0
2
V
k
a
k
b
| e
ba
|
2
(E
a
E
b
)(f
a
f
b
) (4.43)
Where E
b
E
a
= has been used, and E = +iA for the rst term in
A(r, t) with exp(it) dependence In terms of the dipole moment, we write the
absorption coecient as
() =

n
r
c
0
2
V
k
a
k
b
| e
ba
|
2
(E
a
E
b
)(f
a
f
b
) (4.44)
We can see that the factors containing A
2
o
are canceled since the linear optical
absorption coecient is independent of the optical intensity, which is proportional
to A
2
o
. When the scattering relaxiation is included, the delta function may be
replaced by a Lorentzian function with a linewidth .
(E
a
E
b
)
/2
(E
a
E
b
)
2
+ (/2)
2
(4.45)
Where a factor has been included such that the area under the function is
properly normalized:
_
(E
a
E
b
)d() = 1 (4.46)
4.6 Wavefunction Calculation
To calculate the dipole moment in (4.2), the wavefunctions corresponding to the
initial and nal states of the transitions should be obtained. The wavefunctions
corresponding to the discrete energy states in the QDs are localized inside the
QDs. Therefore, assuming zero boundary conditions on a virtual cylinder sur-
rounding the QD, the bound wavefunctions and the corresponding discrete energy
eigenvalues can be calculated. In the continuum states above the QD barrier, the
assumption of zero boundary conditions is not suitable for obtaining the wave-
functions in this part of the DOS. Instead, the method of the Greens function is
used to calculate the wavefunctions in this part of the spectrum. A self-energy
term is added to the Hamiltonian at the cylinder surface to simulate the proper
boundary conditions representing the coupling with the surroundings outside the
cylinder. The bound state wavefunctions in the quantum dots are calculated by
solving the eigenvalue problem:
[EI H]
b
= 0 (4.47)
which gives all the eigenstates and the corresponding eigenvalues and HD is
the Hamiltonian matrix of the isolated cylinder cross section that contains the
Quantum Dot. This procedure is suitable to calculate the bound states since they
are localized inside the quantum dot and hence we can assume zero boundary
condition at the cylinder radius. To get the wave-function in the continuum part
of the spectrum, the Greens function method has been used to simulate the free
motion of electrons above the quantum dot and to add an additional self-energy
term at the cylindrical surface to simulate the open boundary condition. The
retarded Greens function gives the response at any point due to a unit excitation
at any other point. So the Hamiltonian of the isolated cylinder is modied by
adding a self-energy term to simulate the interaction with the surroundings in
addition to the excitation term in the R.H.S. The wavefunctions [Ref: S. Datta,
Electronic Transport in Mesoscopic Systems (Cambridge University, Press, 1995)]
satisfy the equation
_
EI H
D

r
_
c
= S (4.48)
where S is the excitation term due to propagating waves incident from the
lead at the cylinders surface. The retarded Greens function of the system in the
cylindrical representation and in the matrix form is given by
_
EI H
D

r
_
G
D
= (x x
)(y y
) (4.49)
From the above equation, the wavefunction can be related to the Greens
function by the relation:
c
=
_
EI H
D

r
_
1
S = G
D
S (4.50)
If we write the self energy
r
=
m
f
m
|
m
(4.51)
then the excitation S is given by
S =
m
(f
n
f
n
) |
m
(4.52)
which gives the contribution from all propagating modes at same total energy
E. In normal incidence operation, the electric eld is polarized in the in-plane
directions, that is, x or y directions. Therefore for an arbitrary polarized electric
eld in the xy plane, the dipole moment will be given by
bc
= e
c
|r|
b
(4.53)
bc
= e
_
i + y

b
_
(4.54)
which indicates the selection rules for allowed optical transitions. The elec-
trons can be photo-excited from the bound states of quantum dot to the contin-
uum states lying in quantum well or barrier.
4.7 Our Findings and Results
The reported heterostructure in [19], cited as sample B (AlGaAs/InGaAs/InAs),
when compared with sample A (AlGaAs/GaAs/InAlGaAs/InAs), has exhibited
a signicant improvement in photocurrent response for both S-plane (in plane)
and P plane (45 deg to Growth plane) polarized light, which, the authors like to
attribute to the improved Height to Base ratio (H/B) of Quantum Dot in Sample
B than in sample A. In a bid to nd out whether this improvement is predomi-
nantly caused by Height to Base ratio improvement or by some other reason (since
the two samples are of dierent composition), we have chosen a heterostructure
reported in [8]. In this specimen, The self-assembled growth of quantum dots in
the Stranski-Krastanov (SK) growth mode grows Quantum Dots having height
of 6.5nm and base of 11nm on 2.4 ML wetting layer. In theoretical simulation
of absorption coecient, we have changed the base dimension of quantum dot,
keeping its height xed at 6.5nm.
The experimentally measured polarized spectral response of the DDWELL
sample B with H/B=8nm/12nm=0.67, shows a blue shift of peak response over
DDWELL sample A with H/B= 5nm/17nm= 0.29 in case of both S and P po-
larized light. However, we believe, this shift is prominently caused by composi-
tional variation of the two samples, and therefore, other than wavelength shift,
are primarily interested in verifying the claim of magnitude of spectral response
improvement due to H to B ratio improvement in this paper. This result may
be intuitively expected because increasing Quantum Dot Base dimension means
decreasing the zero dimensional connement for electron and thus decreasing
atom-like behavior of QD structure.
A rigorous theoretical analysis of transitional dipole moment for standard
Quantum dot dimension cited in [8] with 6.5nm Height and 11nm Base yields
the gure 4.2. This gure shows two dominant peak and one pseudo-dominant
peak. However, not all the peak be necessarily existent in experimental result of
photocurrent response, since Fermis Golden Rule will eliminate the possibility
of any transition from even to even or odd to odd ? function.
The calculated transitional dipole moment is later used to estimate absorption
coecient at 77K. We considered inhomogeneous broadening (Lorentzian broad-
ening) is dominant in absorption phenomena. The curve of absorption coecient
in Fig 4.2 exhibits not only a smoothened function but also the elimination of
the pseudo appearance of a peak in dipole moment curve.
Figure 4.1: Dipole moment versus wavelength for S polarized inci-
dent light in a standard dot-in-a-well infrared photodetector. QD has
Height/Base=6.5nm/11nm
A relative comparison among absorption coecient of QDIP for various Height
to Base ratio is graphically shown in Fig 4.3 and Fig ??. Fig 4.3, applicable
for S polarized light, indicates, peak of absorption coecient (and henceforth,
probably spectral response) is vividly highest among all three H/B value taken
into account. However, it does not experience a monotonic fall in maxima as H/B
value is declined.
Fig 4.4, applicable for P polarized incident light gives us a rather straight-
forward notion. It indicates a clear improvement in absorption coecient with
the rise of Height to Base ratio.
Figure 4.2: Absorption coecient versus wavelength for S polarized in-
cident light in a standard dot-in-a-well infrared photodetector. QD has
Height/Base=6.5nm/11nm
Figure 4.3: Comparison of absorption coecient of dierent hypothetical QDIPs
having various Height to Base ratio. Incident Light is S polarized (in plane
incidence)
However, in both case of polarization, the maxima of absorption coecient
invariably shifts towards red end with gradual rise in Height to Base ratio.
Table below indicates the relative magnitude of maxima of absorption co-
ecient, for S and P polarization. Notably, since the base diameter of QD is
always larger than the height [6], the polarization dependent infrared absorption
is anisotropic and s -polarized (in-plane) absorption is always less than the vertical
polarized absorption.
Figure 4.4: Comparison of absorption coecient of dierent hypothetical QDIPs
having various Height to Base ratio. Incident Light is P polarized (45 degree
incidence to growth plane)
4.8 Conclusion
Here, we have pointed out the interesting phenomenon of how the quantum dot
dimensions exert impact in determining DWELLs absorption co-ecient. This
analysis will eventually shed some light on the relative change of magnitude of
the photocurrent response in conjunction with change of QD dimensions. The
InAs/InGaAs/GaAs DWELL structure is taken and its quantum dot base is var-
Figure 4.5: Relative change of absorption peak with dot dimension change. Ab-
sorption peak found for 7nm QD base is taken as unity, when incident light is S
polarized.
Figure 4.6: Relative change of absorption peak with dot dimension change. Ab-
sorption peak found for 7nm QD base is taken as unity, when incident light is P
polarized.
ied while its height is kept xed at standard value (6.5nm). In each case, absorp-
tion co-ecient of the device is calculated resulting from both S and P polarized
incident light. The experimentally found fact of responsivity improvement with
quantum dot height to base ratio improvement also matches with our numerically
simulated result within a certain range of observation. The parabolic variation of
absorption maximum with change in QD height to base ratio for S polarized light
can likely be attributed to the race between two possible factors: QD volume and
QD dimension ratio. However, whether absorption maximum will change in a
similar parabolic way for P polarized light as well beyond our observed range or
will retain its linear shape remains a matter of further investigation.
Chapter 5
Conclusions
A summary of the main contributions of this research about DWELL modeling
and optimization is presented in this chapter. Future research recommendations
are provided for improvement and upgrading of the models developed achiev-
ing more accurate device characterization which would lead to improved device
design.
5.1 CONCLUSION
In our thesis, we have explored some interesting and important behavior of Quan-
tum dot-in-a-well detector by simulation and compared with the available exper-
imental data. DWELL detector has one wonderful feature. Its peak wavelength
response can be tuned in two ways: a) by changing the bias voltage, and b) by
changing the dimension of quantum well in the heterostructure. It implies that
a DWELL detector is tunable both before and after fabrication.
In the very rst phase, we have investigated how the change in thickness
of quantum well brings change in Density of Quantum State. In fact, we have
varied the dimension of bottom half well keeping the upper half well xed in
thickness so as to house the quantum dots promptly. A gradual increase of the
width of bottom half well results in a gradual reduction in distance between
any two neighboring energy levels. In particular, the position of ground energy
level remains unaected by the change of quantum well dimension, whereas the
higher energy levels shifts towards the ground level, and hence lessening the inter
69
CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSIONS 70
sub-band gap. This observation eventually substantiates the fact that, if we
increase the height of quantum well, we may expect to obtain a red shift of peak
wavelength response. However, this observation may experience an exception in
continual red shift of wavelength, since an availability of quantum state does not
necessarily prove the existence of an electron in that state. Occupation of state
by an electron is also dependent on Fermi function that we apparently have not
taken into account in this investigation.
In the second phase, we have pointed out the interesting phenomenon of how
the quantum dot dimensions exert impact in determining DWELLs absorption
co-ecient. This analysis will eventually shed some light on the relative change
of magnitude of the photocurrent response in conjunction with change of QD di-
mensions. The InAs/InGaAs/GaAs DWELL structure is taken and its quantum
dot base is varied while its height is kept xed at standard value (6.5nm). In
each case, absorption co-ecient of the device is calculated resulting from both
S and P polarized incident light. The experimentally found fact of responsivity
improvement with quantum dot height to base ratio improvement also matches
with our numerically simulated result within a certain range of observation. The
parabolic variation of absorption maximum with change in QD height to base
ratio for S polarized light can likely be attributed to the race between two possi-
ble factors: QD volume and QD dimension ratio. However, whether absorption
maximum will change in a similar parabolic way for P polarized light as well
beyond our observed range or will retain its linear shape remains a matter of
further investigation. Noteworthy, this work can have future extension to nd
out some more properties inherently related to DWELL detectors mechanism.
In example, the calculation of transmission co-ecient, together with previously
calculated absorption co-ecient will give us responsivity of the detector. Be-
sides, the dark current behavior with variation in temperature and voltage bias
will be a very crucial point to explore. In addition, we are planning to nd a
feasible way out to incorporate the eect of coupling between two neighboring
quantum dots in our mathematical model in a bid to bring the simulated result
closer to the experimentally observed behavior of a DWELL photo-detector.
5.2 FUTURE WORK
The present research lays the foundation for developing quantum transport mod-
els based on NEGF to describe the main characteristics of DWELLs. The goal
of these models is to understand the physical operations of these nano-devices in
order to have an insight of how the detector design can be improved such that it
gives the optimized performance eciently fullling the required characteristics.
There is a trade o between the accuracy of the model and its complexity.
Therefore, for good results a compromise between the accuracy and complexity
is necessary. More research is required to improve and upgrade the models de-
veloped in the thesis to make them more accurate and to calculate more physical
quantities required in fully characterizing the DWELLs. Some of these recom-
mendations will be described in this section
5.2.1 INTERMIXING AND STRAIN EFFECT
The models developed in the thesis are based on a single band eective mass
approximation. The DWELLs modeled are unipolar devices and the values of
the conduction band osets and electron eective masses are used to solve the
dierential equation of the Greens function. As described in chapter 3, all points
in the lattice grid associated to the QD have single values for the potential energy
and electron eective mass and the same thing for the QW and barrier regions.
This means that no intermixing is assumed between the QD material and the
material corresponding to the surrounding barriers. For example, for InAs QDs
grown on GaAs, the model assumed no intermixing between In and Ga to get
a simplied potential energy and eective mass proles. The real situation is
that intermixing between dierent heterostructure materials does occur which
will modify the values of the band osets and eective masses . Also the strain
eld distribution in the QD region will aect the values of band osets and
eective masses such that they will have a specic distribution in the QD and
the surrounding regions. The numerical model developed in the thesis is general
and can accept any input potential energy and eective masses prole if known.
So nding out the exact compositions of the QD and the surrounding barrier in
addition to the eect of the strain eld distribution on the values of the conduction
band osets and eective masses will allow the model to describe a more realistic
conguration of the QD region and hence giving better results.
5.2.2 NON-UNIFORMITY OF QDS SIZE, AND DIS-
TRIBUTION
One of the assumptions used in the model to simplify the calculations is that it
actually describes a uniform distribution of QDs in the layers of the detector in
addition to using the average values of height and diameter of QDs in the cal-
culations. This gives symmetry that allows, for example, calculating the portion
of the current that passes through one QD and then the total current is the QD
density times this portion of the current. In addition it simplies the calculations
of the DOS, energy eigenvalues and the corresponding wavefunctions. The model
used in the thesis considered the uncertainty in the shape and size of QDs by
using average values for the height and diameter of the QDs by adding a small
imaginary part to the electron energy in the equation. Adding this small imagi-
nary part causes broadening to the energy levels such that they have a Gaussian
shape instead of sharp delta functions obtained when all QDs have the same
shape and size. A better description of the random shape and size of QDs can be
done through a sensitivity analysis technique described in . This technique gives
an estimate about the rate of change of a specic physical quantity as a func-
tion of one of the dimensional parameters, for example. In this way there is no
need of multiple simulations to scan all possible values of heights and diameters
of QDs and instead, the average values can be used one time in the simulation
and then the sensitivity analysis will give the corresponding simulation values at
other values of QD sizes. So including this technique may save time of repeating
the simulations in case other QDs need to be tested.
5.2.3 INTERACTION WITH THE LATTICE
The NEGF model gives a straightforward way of including interactions in the
system whether with the surrounding contacts or internally in the QDs and the
surrounding barriers. The types of interactions to be included and the degree
of approximations to be used determine both the accuracy and the complexity
of the calculations. The interactions with the lattice are modeled in its simplest
form. The self-energy due to lattice interactions is assumed to be constant inde-
pendent on energy and position and corresponding to localized elastic scattering
of a constant scattering rate. This simple form of self-energy does not require a
selfconsistent solutions between the Greens functions and the self-energy as in the
case of considering the self-consistent rst order Born approximation for model-
ing electron phonon interactions. A realistic description of the interaction with
the lattice requires including self-energies corresponding to interactions between
electrons and longitudinal and acoustic phonons, but a self-consistent solution
is needed in this case. Assuming constant and uniform scattering rates simpli-
es the calculations but it might not be valid for high applied biases and high
temperature. The electron-electron interaction is considered qualitatively in the
model through a self-consistent solution between the electron density and the
potential energy as shown in chapter 5. A better description of electron-electron
interaction can be done through the Hartree-Fock approximation to calculate the
self-energy due to the charges of the QD and surrounding QDs.
5.2.4 TRANSIENT RESPONSE
Furthermore, there is one important characteristic of DWELL that has not been
discussed in this work which might be useful for some applications. The transient
response of the DWELL should be modeled for uorescent applications where
the time decay of the received pulse is important. The models in the thesis
focus on DC applications such as thermal imaging and focal plane arrays where
the signal is in steady state. For time varying signal, the transient response
for the responsivity is needed. Some techniques to model the transient response
in QWIPs have been shown in using Monte Carlo methods. For an accurate
description of the transient response in a quantum system like a DWELL, the
real time Greens functions can be used to calculate the responsivity as a function
of time . Further research is needed to solve the problem without adding a lot
of complexity due to the increase of the dimensions of the problem by adding
an extra time axis. One simple way would be to obtain a circuit model for the
DWELL in order to estimate a time constant RC for the detector. The time
constant could be obtained by calculating the resistance of the barrier material
between the QD layers and the equivalent capacitance between the contacts of
the detector taking into consideration the QD capacitance in the layers.
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THEORETICAL MODELING OF QUANTUM DOT IN A

WELL INFRARED PHOTODETECTORS

gives the advanced. This can

ab|. The downward transition rate per unit volume (s-1cm-

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