Superlattice

A superlattice is a periodic structure of layers of two (or more) materials. Typically, the thickness of one layer is several nanometers. It can also refer to a lower-dimensional structure such as an array of quantum dots or quantum wires. Superlattices were discovered early in 1925 by Johansson and Linde after the studies on gold-copper and palladium-copper systems through their special X-ray diffraction patterns. Further experimental observations and theoretical modifications on the field were done by Bradley and Jay, Gorsky, Borelius, Dehlinger and Graf, Bragg and Williams and Bethe. Theories were based on the transition of arrangement of atoms in crystal lattices from disordered state to an ordered state. J.S. Koehler theoretically predicted that by using alternate (nano-)layers of materials with high and low elastic constants, shearing resistance is improved by up to 100 times as the Frank–Read source of dislocations cannot operate in the nanolayers. The increased mechanical hardness of such superlattice materials was confirmed firstly by Lehoczky in 1978 on Al-Cu and Al-Ag, and later on by several others, e.g. Barnett and Sproul on hard PVD coatings. If the superlattice is made of two semiconductor materials with different band gaps, each quantum well sets up new selection rules that affect the conditions for charges to flow through the structure. The two different semiconductor materials are deposited alternately on each other to form a periodic structure in the growth direction. Since the 1970 proposal of synthetic superlattices by Esaki and Tsu, advances in the physics of such ultra-fine semiconductors, presently called quantum structures, have been made. The concept of quantum confinement has led to the observation of quantum size effects in isolated quantum well heterostructures and is closely related to superlattices through the tunneling phenomena. Therefore, these two ideas are often discussed on the same physical basis, but each has different physics useful for applications in electric and optical devices. Superlattice miniband structures depend on the heterostructure type, either type I, type II or type III. For type I the bottom of the conduction band and the top of the valence subband are formed in the same semiconductor layer. In type II the conduction and valence subbands are staggered in both real and reciprocal space, so that electrons and holes are confined in different layers. Type III superlattices involve semimetal material, such as HgTe/CdTe. Although the bottom of the conduction subband and the top of the valence subband are formed in the same semiconductor layer in Type III superlattice, which is similar with Type I superlattice, the band gap of Type III superlattices can be continuously adjusted from semiconductor to zero band gap material and to semimetal with negative band gap. Another class of quasiperiodic superlattices is named after Fibonacci. A Fibonacci superlattice can be viewed as a one-dimensional quasicrystal, where either electron hopping transfer or on-site energy takes two values arranged in a Fibonacci sequence. Semiconductor materials, which are used to fabricate the superlattice structures, may be divided by the element groups, IV, III-V and II-VI. While group III-V semiconductors (especially GaAs/AlxGa1−xAs) have been extensively studied, group IV heterostructures such as the SixGe1−x system are much more difficult to realize because of the large lattice mismatch. Nevertheless, the strain modification of the subband structures is interesting in these quantum structures and has attracted much attention.