Optical properties of ultrathin GaAs/AlAs quantum well structures with an electric field

A theoretical study of the optical properties of GaAs/AlAs quantum well structures in the presence of an electric field is presented. In the first part of the article, interband transitions from the valence band to the conduction band are studied near the type‐I to type‐II transition point. In the second part, the effect of the electric field on intersubband transitions within the conduction band is considered. The band structure is calculated using a second‐nearest‐neighbor empirical sp3 tight binding method including spin–orbit effects. Interband and intersubband transition energies, optical matrix elements, and absorption coefficients are given as functions of the electric field. It is shown that the optical properties of these structures can be modified significantly with field near the anticrossing point.