Effect of impurity correlation in heavily modulation-doped quantum wires

A theory is given of the electronic properties of modulation-doped quantum wires which undergo a thermal treatment, taking into account Coulomb interactions among the impurities in the sample preparation. The impurity correlation weakens their field and is enhanced when elevating the doping level, lowering the freezing temperature for impurity diffusion, and reducing the size of the impurity system. In the limiting case of a 1D impurity system, the ionic correlation may suppress the impurity field even at a low doping level. For a very thin impurity system, the electron mobility of the wire may be increased by up to some orders of magnitude at a high doping level. (author)