Stability of the positively charged manganese centre in GaAs heterostructures examined theoretically by the effective mass approximation calculation near the \varGamma critical point

This paper describes an n-i-p-i-n model heterostructure with a manganese (Mn)-doped p-type base region to check the stability of a positively charged manganese A_Mn⁺ centre with two holes weakly bound by a negatively charged 3d⁵(Mn) core of a local spin S=5/2 in the framework of the effective mass approximation near the Γ critical point (k～0). By including the carrier screening effect, the ground state energy and the binding energy of the second hole in the positively charged centre A_Mn⁺ are calculated within a hole concentration range from 1 × 10¹⁶ cm^-3 to 1 × 10¹⁷ cm^-3, which is achievable by biasing the structure under photo-excitation. For comparison, the ground-state energy of a single hole in the neutral A_Mn⁰ centre is calculated in the same concentration range. It turns out that the binding energy of the second hole in the A_Mn⁺ centre varies from 9.27 meV to 4.57 meV. We propose that the presence of the A_Mn⁺ centre can be examined by measuring the photoluminescence from recombination of electrons in the conduction band with the bound holes in the A_Mn⁺ centre since a high frequency dielectric constant of \varepsilon_\infty=10.66 can be safely adopted in this case. The novel feature of the ability to tune the impurity level of the A_Mn⁺ centre makes it attractive for optically and electrically manipulating local magnetic spins in semiconductors.