Determination of the pyroelectric coefficient in strained InGaAs/GaAs quantum wells grown on (111)B GaAs substrates

We report an experimental determination of the pyroelectric coefficient for strained InGaAs layers in a pseudomorphic piezoelectric In0.17Ga0.83As/GaAs multiquantum well in a p-i-n diode configuration which was grown on a (111)B GaAs substrate by molecular-beam epitaxy. By analyzing the Franz–Keldysh oscillations in the photoreflectance spectra over the temperature range 11–300 K, we obtained the temperature dependence of the piezoelectric field, from which the temperature variation of the piezoelectric constant e14 was deduced. A linear dependence of e14 with temperature was observed. Therefore, the strain-induced component of the pyroelectric coefficient of (9.3±0.3)×10−7 C/m2 K was determined for this material system.