LATERAL PIEZOELECTRIC FIELDS - A UNIVERSAL FEATURE OF STRAINED III-V AND II-VI SEMICONDUCTOR HETEROSTRUCTURES

Strained II-VI and III-V semiconductor heterostructures in general are expected to have a piezoelectric polarization with a non-zero component in the plane of the interfaces which generates lateral piezoelectric fields. We use InAs structures synthesized on vicinal (110)-GaAs surfaces as a model system to study such fields for the first time. These lateral fields manifest themselves in strong blueshifts of the photoluminescence peaks and an enery dependence of the radiative lifetime. Our experiments unambiguously prove the existence of these electric fields and furthermore demonstrate their tremendous impact on the electronic and optical properities of our InAs/GaAs-samples.