Abstract
A tunable asymmetric coupled quantum well far-infrared photodetector is proposed in this paper. The basic asymmetric coupled quantum wells are composed of two quantum wells separated by a thin barrier. In this way, the electron in each well interacts strongly with other electrons to achieve a large Stark tuning effect. The eigenenergies and the wave functions of the quantum-well structures are solved by the self-consistent method, and the effect of the exchange interaction on the ground-state subband has also been taken into account. The absorption coefficient is evaluated by the density-of-states formalism. Based on theoretical calculations, tuning ranges from 8.2 to 11.3 μm and 7.8 to 10.5 μm are predicted for the proposed asymmetric coupled-quantum-well structure and high-low coupled-quantum-well structure, respectively. This tuning capability is achieved by varying the applied electric field in the 20-90-kV/cm range.