Dispersions of propagating optical phonons and electron-phonon interactions in wurtzite GaN/ZnO quantum wells

¹ Department of Physics, Shaanxi University of Technology, Hanzhong 723001, Shaanxi, P.R. China
² College of Physics and Information Engineering, Henan Normal University, Xinxiang 453007, Henan, P.R. China

^a e-mail: sxlgwendeng@163.com

Received: 12 July 2011
Accepted: 3 October 2011
Published online: 2 December 2011

Abstract

Based on the dielectric-continuum model and Loudon’s crystal model, the propagating optical phonons and electron-phonon interactions are studied by using the determinate method. The dispersions and electron-phonon coupling functions of the propagating optical phonons are investigated for wurtzite GaN/ZnO single quantum well (QW). The numerical results show that there are infinite propagating phonon branches by a quantum number m in the two regions. The propagating optical phonons are more dispersive for decreasing m. Moreover, the electron-phonon coupling functions have oscillating behavior in barrier layer (GaN), the periods of electron-phonon coupling functions in low frequency region are larger than those in high frequency region. The electron-phonon coupling functions of propagating phonon modes in low frequency region are more important than those in high frequency region.