Sound amplification by stimulated emission of radiation 0.3 eV. For the same scheme, the usage of a semiconductor heterostructure (layers of different semiconductors) with narrow gap indirect in momentum space between valence and conduction bands may be more effective. This could be more promising since the spatial separation of the layers provides a possibility of tuning the interband transition into resonance by an external electric field. An essential statement here is that this proposed phonon laser can operate only if the temperature is much lower than the energy gap in the semiconductor. During the analysis of this theoretical scheme several assumptions were introduced for simplicity reasons. The
Sound amplification by stimulated emission of radiation short-wavelength (in the terahertz range) phonons are produced. Since the electrons are confined to the quantum wells existing within the lattice, the transmission of their energy depends upon the phonons they generate. As these phonons strike other layers in the lattice, they excite electrons, which produce further phonons, which go on to excite more electrons, and so on. Eventually, a very narrow beam of high-frequency ultrasound exits the device. Semiconductor superlattices are used as acoustic mirrors. These superlattice structures must be in the right size obeying the theory of multilayer distributed Bragg reflector, in similarity with multilayer dielectric mirrors in