THz-excitation spectroscopy technique for band-offset determination.

The experimental THz-excitation spectroscopy technique for determining heterojunction band offsets is suggested. When photoexcited electrons gain sufficient energy to pass the potential barrier corresponding to a conduction band offset, an amplitude of THz-emission pulse sharply increases, which allows for direct measurements of the offset value. The technique is applied for determining GaAsBi-GaAs band offsets. The deduced conduction band offset of GaAsBi-GaAs heterojunction has about 45% of an energy gap difference at the Bi concentrations x < 0.12 investigated.