Impurity-related polarizability and photoionization-cross section in GaAs–Ga1−xAlxAs double quantum wells under electric fields and hydrostatic pressure

Double quantum well heterostructures are quite important for the exploration of correlated electron states in two-dimensional systems. By using the variational procedure, within the effective-mass and parabolic-band approximations, the effects of both electric field and hydrostatic pressure on the shallow-donor-impurity related polarizability and photoionization cross-section in GaAs–Ga1−xAlxAs double asymmetric quantum wells are presented. The electric field is considered to be applied along the growth direction. It is found that the impurity binding energy and polarizability can be tuned by means of an applied external electric field or hydrostatic pressure in asymmetric double quantum wells, a behavior which could be used in the design and construction of semiconductor devices. The photoionization cross-section magnitude increases as the pressure and applied electric field are increased, except beyond the Γ–XΓ–X crossover in the barrier material, where a decrease of the photoionization cross-section is expected due the smaller confinement of the impurity wave function.