Relevance of intra- and inter-subband scattering on the absorption in heterostructures

Abstract:
We analyze the absorption lineshape for inter-subband transitions in disordered quasi two-dimensional heterostructures by an exact calculation. The intra-subband scatterings control the central peak, while the tails of the absorption line are dominated by the inter-subband scattering terms. Our numerical study quantitatively assesses the magnitude of the free carrier absorption. The accuracy of different models currently used for gain/absorption is discussed.