Temporal characteristics of surface-acoustic-wave-driven luminescence from a lateral p-n junction

Short radio frequency pulses were used to study the surface-acoustic-wave-driven light emission from a molecular beam epitaxy regrown GaAs/AlGaAs lateral p-n junction. The luminescence provides a fast probe of the signals arriving at the junction allowing the authors to temporally separate the effect of the surface-acoustic-wave from pickup of the free space electromagnetic wave. Oscillations in the light intensity are resolved at the resonant frequency of the transducer, suggesting that the surface-acoustic-wave is transporting electrons across the junction in packets. (C) 2007 American Institute of Physics.