Hydrogen impurities in quantum well wires

Abstract

The binding energy of hydrogenic impurites in a quantum well wire has been calculated as a function of the width of the quantum well wire and the location of the impurity with respect to the axis of the wire. The calculations have been preformed using a variational wave function which takes into account the confinement of the carriers in the wire. For the confining potential used in our calculations, we have used the models of either an infinite potential well or a finite potential well whose depth is detemined by the discontinuity of the band gas in the quantum well wire and the cladding. For the infinite potential well model, the binding energy continues to increase as the radius of the wire decreases while in the finite potential well model, the binding energy reaches a peak value as the wire radius decreases and then decreases to a value characteristic of the cladding. The binding energy also depends upon the location of the impurity in the wire and is a maximum when the impurity is located on the axis of the wire.