Intersubband absorption at normal incidence by m-plane ZnO/MgZnO quantum wells

M. Montes Bajo; J. Tamayo-Arriola; N. Le Biavan; J. M. Ulloa; P. Vennéguès; D. Lefebvre; M. Hugues; J.-M. Chauveau; A. Hierro

doi:10.1117/12.2509524

1 March 2019 Intersubband absorption at normal incidence by m-plane ZnO/MgZnO quantum wells

M. Montes Bajo, J. Tamayo-Arriola, N. Le Biavan, J. M. Ulloa, P. Vennéguès, D. Lefebvre, M. Hugues, J.-M. Chauveau, A. Hierro

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 10919, Oxide-based Materials and Devices X; 109192C (2019) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2509524
Event: SPIE OPTO, 2019, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

Intersubband absorption at normal incidence is forbidden by the selection rules and requires oblique incidence operation or texturing of the surface of intersubband-based devices such as focal plane arrays, adding additional processing steps to their fabrication and therefore increasing complexity and costs. Here we demonstrate normal-incidence, polarization sensitive intersubband absorption by wurtzite ZnO/MgZnO quantum wells grown on an m-plane orientation. When grown in this non-polar plane, the ZnO/MgZnO quantum wells spontaneously assemble forming a V-groove profile in the direction perpendicular to the c-axis, i.e. along the a-direction. A stack of quantum wells featuring this morphology acts as a metamaterial that allows for intersubband absorption at normal incidence whenever the electric field of the light is polarized in the direction perpendicular to the c axis. This phenomenon occurs because when the electric field is perpendicular to the c-axis it is no longer contained in the plane of the quantum wells therefore allowing for a small intersubband absorption. On the contrary, if the electric field is parallel to the c-axis, the usual normal-incidence conditions are recovered and no absorption is observed.

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M. Montes Bajo, J. Tamayo-Arriola, N. Le Biavan, J. M. Ulloa, P. Vennéguès, D. Lefebvre, M. Hugues, J.-M. Chauveau, and A. Hierro "Intersubband absorption at normal incidence by m-plane ZnO/MgZnO quantum wells", Proc. SPIE 10919, Oxide-based Materials and Devices X, 109192C (1 March 2019); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2509524

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