Electric-field effect on shallow impurity ground state in nanowire superlattice

We have developed a variational formalism to analyze the effect of electric field on the donor ground state in a nanowire superlattice with cylindrical cross-section. The trial function is taken as a product of the free-electron ground state wave function with an envelope function that is a solution of a differential equation arising from the Schrodinger variational principle. We establish a close relationship between the donor ground state energy and density of charge induced by the unbound electron at the point of donor location. Also, we show that electric field applied along the crystal growth direction can easily shift the peak position of the free-electron density distribution from the central well toward one of the nanowire ends, providing a variation of the average electron-ion separation and a considerable alteration of the donor ground state energy. (C) 2008 Published by Elsevier B.V.