Thermal equilibrium governing the formation of negatively charged excitons in resonant tunneling diodes

Abstract

The thermal equilibrium of the formation of negatively charged excitons is studied in this work, by measuring the current and quantum-well photoluminescence in biased resonant tunneling double barrier diodes. We observe that the intensity ratio of negatively charged and neutral excitons depends linearly on the current for fixed temperature and illumination conditions. We propose that the results can be interpreted in terms of a mass-action law governing the concentrations of neutral and charged excitons and free electrons. Measurements at different temperatures and bias yield an electron concentration and a dwell time in the well that are in good agreement with the values previously reported in the literature. We also analyze the dependence of the luminescence on excitation intensity. © 2002 American Institute of Physics.