Effect of strain on multisubband electron transport in GaAs/InxGa1-xAs coupled quantum well structures

We analyze the strain induced changes in the low temperature multisubband electron mobility mediated through the intersubband interactions in a pseudomorphic GaAs/InxGa1-xAs coupled double quantum well structure. We consider the non-phonon scattering mechanisms and study the effect of strain on them. We show that strain reduces the mobility due to ionized impurity (imp-) scattering mu(imp) but enhances the mobility due to interface roughness (IR-) scattering mu(IR). For alloy disorder (AL-) scattering as long as the lowest subband is occupied, the effect of strain enhances the mobility mu(AL). However, once the second subband is occupied, there is almost no change, rather decrease in mu(AL) for larger well widths. It is gratifying to note that for single subband occupancy, the effect of strain enhances the total mobility mu. On the other hand, for double subband occupancy, initially there is almost no change, but with increase in well width the total mobility reduces. We vary the In composition x from 0.15 to 0.2 and 0.25 and the barrier width between the two wells to analyze their effects on the mobility which shows interesting results. Our study of multisubband mobility can be utilized for the low temperature device applications. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.