Direct measurement of piezoelectric field in In0.23Ga0.77N/GaN multiple quantum wells by electrotransmission spectroscopy

In this communication, we present experimental evidence of the piezoelectric-field-induced quantum-confined Stark effect on In0.23Ga0.77N/GaN multiple quantum wells. The optical transitions in In0.23Ga0.77N/GaN p-i-n multiple quantum wells were studied by using electrotransmission (ET) at room temperature. Quantum-well-related signals are well resolved in our ET spectra. Since the strong internal electric field breaks the symmetry of the quantum wells, both the allowed and the forbidden transitions are observed. Clear energy blueshifts in accordance with increasing reversed bias are observed in ET spectra. The strength of piezoelectric field is found to be 1.7-1.9 MV/cm in the In0.23Ga0.77N strain quantum well layer, which is comparable with the measurement reported in the literature. We have shown experimentally how the piezoelectric field affects the energy shift for the strained multiple quantum wells. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.