Effect of hydrostatic pressure on the binding energies of excitons in quantum wells

The binding energies of excitons in finite barrier quantum wells under hydrostatic pressure are calculated by a variational method. The influences of hydrostatic pressure on the effective masses of the electron and hole, the dielectric constant, and the conduction band offset between the well and barriers are taken into account in the calculation. The numerical results for the GaAs/AlxGa1-xAs and GaN/AlxGa1-xN quantum wells are given respectively. It is shown that the exciton binding energy increases linearly with the pressure and the pressure effect on arsenide quantum wells is more obvious than that on nitride ones. The exciton binding energies monotonically increase with increasing barrier height, which is related to the Al concentration of the barriers and the influence of the pressure.