Nonequilibrium longitudinal-optical phonon effects in GaAs-AlGaAs quantum wells

We use an ensemble Monte Carlo technique to study the electron and phonon dynamics in a single quantum well of GaAs-AlGaAs under optical excitation. The cooling of the photoexcited quasi two-dimensional electron distribution is studied in the presence of a nonequilibrium longitudinal-optical phonon population and electron-electron interaction. It is found that the presence of hot phonons due to emission from the photoexcited carriers in the quantum well reduces the electron relaxation rate in qualitative agreement with available experimental results in such systems.