ELECTRONIC STATES IN GAAS/ALAS LATERAL-SURFACE SUPERLATTICES

The electronic energy subband structures and energy minigaps in quasi-two-dimensional electronic systems with periodic modulation potentials along the lateral directions due to the periodic modulation of the widths of the systems, such as those produced by deposition of AlAs and GaAs fractional layers on (001) vicinal GaAs substrates, were predicted by numerical calculations. A coordinate transformation was introduced which transforms the systems with periodically structured interfaces to quantum wells with planar interfaces, so that the boundary conditions of the electron wavefunctions are considerably simplified. The dependence of the electronic subband structures and energy minigaps on the structural parameters of the systems, such as the periods and shapes of their periodically structured interfaces, are investigated in detail.