Optical reflection and contactless electroreflection from GaAlAs layers with periodically arranged GaAs quantum wells

Optical reflection and electroreflection for the AlGaAs layers containing the periodically arranged GaAs quantum wells of different thickness are studied at photon energies ranging from 1 to 2 eV. It is established that the spectral dependence of the reflectance involves three different contributions made by (i) the reflection from the medium-air interface; (ii) the interference reflection due to the periodically modulated refractive index, since the materials of the wells and barriers have different refractive indices; and (iii) the reflection produced by the interaction of electromagnetic waves with the excition states in the quantum wells. Analysis of the reflection spectra shows that these contributions are characterized by different behavior with variations in temperature, angle of incidence of light, and polarization; however, quantitative separation of the spectra into individual contributions presents a rather difficult problem. To separate the contribution originating from the interaction of light with the exciton states from the optical spectra, a special approach based on contactless measurements of the optical electroreflectance over a certain spectral region is developed. It is shown that this method provides a means for determining the parameters of the exciton states in the quantum wells.