Wannier‐Stark Ladders and Bloch Oscillations in Superlattices

JUN 01, 1993

Optical experiments in semiconductor superlattices in electric fields hove shown the existence of a long debated quantum mechanical phenomenon, bringing us closer to demonstrating an extremely fast emitter of radiation.

DOI: 10.1063/1.881353

Emilio E. Mendez

Gérald Bastard

Conduction electrons in real crystalline solids behave very much like electrons in free space, moving in straight lines between collisions when subject to an electric field. But in an ideal (although cold) world, free from scattering by impurities, imperfections and thermal vibrations of the lattice, how would conduction electrons behave? That question, answered in principle long ago in light of the then newly developed quantum mechanics, was purely academic until recently.

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More about the authors

Emilio E. Mendez, IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York.

Gérald Bastard, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France.