Details of Valence Band Structure of p-GaAs/AIGaAs Symmetric Quantum Wells Unraveled by Uniaxial Compression

Abstract : Uniaxial compression has been applied to symmetrically grown quantum wells of GaAs with Be-modulation-doped barriers of AlGaAs. We demonstrate how the analysis of the influence of uniaxial compression on the Shubnikov de Haas oscillations can unravel details of the valence band structure; e.g. the question of whether or not the ground state is doubly degenerate or is consisting of two slightly different bands. We find the latter to be the case, and that the carrier densities in both of the two bands decrease under the application of the uniaxial compression; however, with different pressure coefficients.