Pyroelectric effect in semiconductor heterostructures

✍ Scribed by Thomas B. Bahder; Richard L. Tober; John D. Bruno

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1993
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 133 KB
• Volume: 14
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0749-6036
• DOI: 10.1006/spmi.1993.1116

✦ Synopsis

In heterostructures made of dielectric or semiconductor materials a reduction in symmetry can lead to a pyroelectric effect in the heterostructure, even though the effect is forbidden by symmetry in the bulk-crystal constituent materials. The pyroelectric effect resulting from an applied éectric field and a built-in strain is estimated for the cases of a [100] and [111] growth-axis GaAs-AlGaAs and GaAs-InGaAs quantum well. The effect is shown to produce pyroelectric cocfficients on the order of (p_{i}=10^{-6} \mathrm{C} / \mathrm{m}^{2} \mathrm{~K}), which is comparable to some bulk-crystal pyroelectric materials.