Confined acoustic and optical plasmons in double-layered quantum-wire arrays with strong tunneling

Abstract

We investigate electronic excitations in GaAs-AlxGa1-xAs double-layered quantum wire arrays with strong tunneling coupling by resonant inelastic light scattering. By applying an external electric field, we can change the one-dimensional (1D) electron density and the symmetry of the double quantum-well (DQW) structure at the same time. We identify confined optical 1D intersubband plasmons (COP) and confined acoustic 1D intersubband plasmons (CAP). Due to the tunneling coupling, the energies of the CAP exhibit a minimum for a symmetric DQW potential, whereas the energies of the COP are dominated by the total carrier density, and are nearly insensitive to the symmetry of the potential.