Eur. Phys. J. B 47, 541-547 (2005)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2005-00362-5

Universal estimation of X⁻ trion binding energy in semiconductor quantum wells

¹ A.F. Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, 194021, St. Petersburg, Russia
² Physikalisches Institut der Universität Würzburg, 97074 Würzburg, Germany
³ Experimentelle Physik 2, Universität Dortmund, 44221 Dortmund, Germany

Corresponding author: ^a rinat.theory@mail.ioffe.ru

Received: 26 May 2005
Published online: 17 November 2005

Abstract

We have analyzed the binding energy () of negatively charged excitons (X^-) in GaAs, CdTe and ZnSe quantum wells, which differ considerably in exciton and trion binding energy. Surprisingly, the in these materials plotted against quantum well width in Bohr units is found to group around one universal curve described by a simple phenomenological equation. An illustrative model is suggested to calculate the binding energy in a general case, and the results of calculations are in agreement with experimental data. The dependencies on the mass ratio and the barriers height are also obtained from the general model and compared with other calculations available.