US-France Cooperative Research: Electronic Properties of Hg-based Heterostructures Grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxy

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This award will support collaborative research in solid state physics between Dr. Jean-Pierre Faurie, University of Illinois at Chicago and Dr. Yves Guldner, Department of Physics, Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, France. The objective of the project is the study of the electronic properties of Hg-based heterostructures grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). The II-VI superlattices (SL's) fabricated with CdTe and zero-gap Hg-based compounds form a new class of heterostructures which are of great interest both fundamentally and technically. The Hg- based semi-conducting heterostructures are considered to be very important and are currently being intensively studied. These heterostructures have been termed "Type III heterostructures" because of the unique inverted band structures of the zero-gap material; in particular the mass reversal for the light particles occurring at each interface leads to the existence of quasi interference states. This distinctive feature contributes significantly to optical and transport properties of these structures. On the other hand, HgTe-CdTe SL's have been proposed as a new material for far infrared detection and they are now under consideration for infrared lasers and optical switching due to the large optical non-linearities observed in these SL's. In this research project, the investigators propose to grow and study two novel SL systems by using MBE as the growth technique and magneto-optical and magneto-transport as the characterization techniques. They also propose to grow by MBE and to study the resonant tunnelling and magneto-tunnelling through HgTe-CdTe double barrier structures. The project will benefit from the complementary expertise of the two investigators. Dr. Faurie is an internationally recognized leader in the area of modulated semiconductor structures grown by MBE. The French group is well recognized for its work on the electronic properties of semi- conductor based heterostructures, such as quantum wells, super- lattices and heterostructures with modulated doping.