Temperature dependent time-resolved exciton luminescence in GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wires and dots

Transient photoluminescence of GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wires and quantum dots formed by strain confinement is studied as a function of temperature. At low temperature, luminescent decay times of the wires and dots correspond to the radiative decay times of localized excitons. The radiative decay time can be either longer or shorter than that of the host quantum well, depending on the size of the wires and dots. For small wires and dots (∼ 100 nm stressor), the exciton radiative recombination rate increases due to lateral confinement. Exciton localization due to the fluctuation of quantum well thickness plays an important role in the temperature dependence of luminescent decay time and exciton transfer in quantum wire and dot structures up to at least ∼ 80 K. Lateral exciton transfer in quantum wire and dot structures formed by laterally patterning quantum wells strongly affects the dynamics of wire and dot luminescence. The relaxation time of hot excitons increases with the depth of strain confinement, but we find no convincing evidence that it is significantly slower in quasi 1-D or 0-D systems than in quantum wells.     

Exciton trapping, binding and diamagnetic shift in T-shaped quantum wires

We determine the exciton states of T-shaped quantum wires. We use anisotropic effective-mass models to describe the electron and hole states. Pair correlation along the wire axis and in the lateral directions is included. We accurately model the measured redshifts between exciton photoluminescence in quantum wells and T-shaped wires. This redshift arises from enhanced exciton binding and the difference between well and wire confinement energy. We predict a large enhancement of binding energy only when lateral correlation is included, indicating that T-shaped wires arequasirather thanquantum1D wires. We calculate exciton shapes and diamagnetic shifts to determine how the exciton is distorted when confined in a T-wire.     

Excitons in CdS and CdSe semiconducting quantum wires with dielectric barriers

Features of the photoluminescence spectra observed for various polarizations and intensities of the pumping radiation and the kinetics of photoluminescence of the CdS and CdSe nanocrystals grown in hollow nanochannels of an Al₂O₃ matrix are explained in terms of exciton transitions in semiconducting quantum wires with dielectric barriers. The observed exciton transition energies coincide with the values calculated with an allowance for the effects of quantum confinement and the “dielectric enhancement” of excitons. The latter effect is manifested by a significant increase in the Coulomb attraction between electrons and holes (the exciton binding energy exceeds 100 meV) due to a difference between the permittivities of semiconductor and insulator. It is shown that the exciton transition energy remains constant when the quantum wire diameter varies within broad limits. This is related to the fact that a growth in the one-dimensional bandgap width of the quantum wire caused by a decrease in the diameter is compensated by an increase in the exciton binding energy.     

Interface phenomena and optical properties of structurally confined InP quantum wire ensembles

Three-dimensional regular ensembles of InP quantum wires have been produced in channels of porous dielectric matrices by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition. These matrices differ both in the diameter of the channels (0.7, 3, and 8 nm) and in their spatial arrangement. The InP layer thickness does not exceed two-three monolayers. A comparative study of Raman, optical absorption, and photoluminescence spectra revealed the dependence of the optical properties of these quantum wires on interface effects, namely, atomic interaction in the wires, wire-matrix, and wire-wire interactions. It is shown that the wire-matrix interaction distorts the InP lattice, broadens the wire electronic density-of-states spectrum in the vicinity of the fundamental gap, and redistributes the relaxation of photoinduced excitations among states belonging to the wire itself and to defects in the matrix bound to the wire. Fiz. Tverd. Tela (St. Petersburg) 39, 727–734 (April 1997)     

图形衬底量子线生长制备与荧光特性研究

报道了在V型槽图形衬底上利用分子束外延技术外延生长的GaAs/AlGaAs量子线.外延截面在扫描电子显微镜下可以看到在V型槽底部形成了弯月型量子线结构,量子线尺寸约为底边60 nm高14 nm的近三角形.低温87 K下光致发光谱测试在793.7和799.5 nm处出现峰值,验证了量子线的存在.理论近似计算结果显示,相比等宽度量子阱有8 meV的蓝移正是由于横向量子限制引起的. 关键词： V型槽图形衬底 量子线 GaAs     

Contact correlations in one-dimensional systems of interacting fermions and the photoluminescence from quantum wires

We calculate the dependence of the carriers lifetime with the wire width in quantum wires by considering a strictly one-dimensional system of interacting electrons and holes. Confinement effects are taken into account through a width-dependent pair-potential proposed by Hu and Das Sarma. The carriers lifetime is then obtained from the inverse of the contact electron–hole correlations. We explain the change in the sign of the derivative at a critical temperature, as it is observed in photoluminescence experiments from In Ga As/InP quantum wires, by taking into account the carriers density dependence with temperature and assuming that the contact correlations are either just a two-body quantity or a many-body one for the lower and higher densities, respectively. In the former case, the system is viewed as an ionized excitonic gas, the pair correlation being the square of the two-body wave function for unbound states. In the latter, we have a metallic electron–hole system and we calculate the contact pair correlation in the many-body ladder approximation.     

Interface interactions and the photoluminescence from asbestos-templated InP quantum wires

The photoluminescence of InP quantum wires embedded in the dielectric template has been studied by site-selective pump-probe spectroscopy. The enhancement of the emission in the spectral window around the pump frequency and the long-lasting memory of pumping have been observed and explained on the basis of changes in energy states of template defects under intensive pumping. The effect of wire–template interface upon the appearance of the photoluminescence spectrum is discussed.     

Electron transport in gated InGaAs and InAsP quantum well wires in selectively grown InP ridge structures

The purpose of this work is to fabricate ribbon-like InGaAs and InAsP wires embedded in InP ridge structures and investigate their transport properties. The InP ridge structures that contain the wires are selectively grown by chemical beam epitaxy (CBE) on pre-patterned InP substrates. To optimize the growth and micro-fabrication processes for electronic transport, we explore the Ohmic contact resistance, the electron density, and the mobility as a function of the wire width using standard transport and Shubnikov–de Haas measurements. At low temperatures the ridge structures reveal reproducible mesoscopic conductance fluctuations. We also fabricate ridge structures with submicron gate electrodes that exhibit non-leaky gating and good pinch-off characteristics acceptable for device operation. Using such wrap gate electrodes, we demonstrate that the wires can be split to form quantum dots evidenced by Coulomb blockade oscillations in transport measurements.     

Properties of Excitons Bound to Neutral Donors in GaAs-AlxGa1-xAs Quantum-Well Wires

In the effective-mass approximation, using a simple two-parameter wave function and a one-dimensional (1D) equivalent potential model, we calculate variationally the binding energy of an exciton bound to a neutral donor (D⁰,X) in finite GaAs-Al_xGa_1-xAs quantum well wires (QWWs). At the wire width of 25 Å, the binding energy has a peak value, which is also at the position of the peak of the exciton binding energy, and the center-of-mass wave functions of excitons reaches the most centralized distribution. In addition, the changing tendency of the average interparticle distance as the wire width is reverse to that of the binding energy.     

The temperature dependence of the photoluminescence from overgrown GaAs/Al0.3Ga0.7As quantum dots and wires

Photoluminescence measurements on GaAs/Al_0.3Ga_0.7As quantum dots and wires fabricated using electron bears lithography and reactive ion etching are reported both before and after regrowth with a layer of Al_0.4Ga_0.6As. Dots exhibit little change in luminescence efficiency from the bulk with a reduction in diameter either before or after regrowth. Surface recombination therefore appears to be suppressed. In wires, however, luminescence intensity is very sensitive to wire width, decreasing rapidly with this parameter, but recovers and becomes independent of size after overgrowth. The temperature dependence of the photoluminescence from the dots and wires showed that dots and wires less than 150nm in width luminesced to higher temperatures than the larger diameter structures and dots liminesced to higher temperatures than wires of comparable width. This suggests that there is a finite coherence area effect which increases the radiative lifetimes of excitons in the quantum structures due to the geometric constraint, in the lateral direction in the wires and in all three directions in the dots. Below 20K bound exciton luminescence dominates in the dots but not in the wires. In wires it is still possible for the excitons to diffuse to nonradiative sites within the exciton lifetime. Regrowth at 750°C causes migration of aluminium into the quantum well and causes the shape of the well to become parabolic resulting shifts in the exciton emission to shorter wavelengths, making it difficult to separate the effect of processing from those due to quantum confinement.     

Exchange-induced splitting of radiative exciton levels in a single quantum wire

We report on polarization-resolved micro-photoluminescence experiments performed on a single GaAs/GaAlAs V-shaped quantum wire. At low temperature the micro-photoluminescence spectra are composed of sharp peaks corresponding to excitons localized in naturally formed quantum boxes. We observed splittings of the radiative doublet of these exciton levels into two linearly polarized states due to the exchange interaction. The exchange splittings are of the order of 100 μeV. A theoretical model of the exchange interaction on localized states in quantum wires is developed. It shows that the exchange splitting is characteristic of the uniaxial anisotropy of the localized states and thus related to their extension along the wire axis. The experimental results are discussed within the frame of this model.     

Effect of barrier thickness on strain uniformity of wire in laterally aligned InGaAs/GaAs quantum wire nanostructures

The effect of barrier thickness on strain uniformity of a laterally aligned array of InGaAs quantum wire in GaAs matrix has been investigated with the finite elements method. A decrease in GaAs barrier thickness was predicted to assist the InGaAs wire to maintain its strain state in the central region up to a longer distance towards the edge of the wire along the width direction. It is suggested that, by reducing the spacing between the quantum wires, it is possible to improve uniformity of strains within the wire, thereby yielding more uniform opto-electronic properties such as sharp and narrow peaks in photoluminescence spectra.     

Optical properties of Zn0.5Cd0.5Se thin films grown on InP by molecular beam epitaxy

We report photoluminescence (PL) and reflectivity measurements of Zn_0.5Cd_0.5Se epilayers grown by molecular beam epitaxy on InP substrates. The low-temperature PL spectra are dominated by asymmetric lines, which can be deconvoluted into two Gaussian peaks with a separation of ∼8 meV. The behavior of these peaks is studied as a function of excitation intensity and temperature, revealing that these are free exciton (FE) and bound exciton emission lines. Two lower energy emission lines are also observed and assigned to the first and second longitudinal optical phonon replicas of the FE emission. The temperature dependence of the intensity, line width, and energy of the dominant emission lines are described by an Arrhenius plot, a Bose-Einstein type relationship, Varshni's and Bose-Einstein equations, respectively.     

一类弯曲量子线的量子束缚态

对电子在弯曲量子线中的弹道输运性质进行了理论研究.弯曲量子线由T型量子线和单曲量子线组成.该有限长的量子结构分别与两半无限长的量子通道相连,当施加一偏压时,量子通道分别可作为电子的发射极和收集极.计算结果表明,当入射电子的能量小于量子结构横向上的第一个本征模时,电导存在两个峰.进一步指出,这些峰来自于电子共振隧穿量子结构中的量子束缚态.并详尽地讨论了这些量子束缚态的性质. 关键词： 量子束缚态 共振隧穿 电导 量子线     

Photoluminescence investigation of ZnO:P nanoneedle arrays on InP substrate by pulsed laser deposition

Phosphorus-doped ZnO nanoneedle arrays were prepared by phosphorus diffusion from InP substrate using a pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique. The optical properties of ZnO nanoneedle were investigated by photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. Low-temperature photoluminescence spectrum measurements exhibited five acceptor-related emission peaks. The excitation intensity and temperature dependent photoluminescence spectra confirmed that the emission peaks corresponded to neutral-acceptor bound exciton, free electron to acceptor, donor-acceptor pairs, and their first and second photon replicas transitions. Acceptor-binding energy was determined to be 135-167 meV, which agrees well with the best-fitting result of the temperature dependent photoluminescence measurements and is reasonable in terms of theoretic prediction in ZnO.     

Polaronic exciton in quantum wells wires and nanotubes

We investigate the effect of the longitudinal-optical phonon field on the binding energies of excitons in quantum wells, well-wires and nanotubes based on ionic semiconductors. We take into account the exciton-phonon interaction by using the Aldrich-Bajaj effective potential for Wannier excitons in a polarizable medium. We extend the fractional-dimensional method developed previously for neutral and negatively charged donors to calculate the exciton binding energies in these heterostructures. In this method, the exciton wave function is taken as a product of the ground state functions of the electron polaron and hole polaron with a correlation function that depends only on the electron-hole separation. Starting from the variational principle we derive a one-dimensional differential equation, which is solved numerically by using the trigonometric sweep method. We find that the potential that takes into account polaronic effects always give rise to larger exciton binding energies than those obtained using a Coulomb potential screened by a static dielectric constant. This enhancement of the binding energy is more considerable in quantum wires and nanotubes than in quantum wells. Our results for quantum wells are in a good agreement with previous variational calculations. Also, we present novel curves of the exciton binding energies as a function of the wire and nanotubes radii for different models of the confinement potential.     

Spectrum of Exciton in a Quantum Wire

In the present work we obtain the wave function and the corresponding energy of exciton confined within a quantum wire. What we do is to obtain the approximate analytical solution of the corresponding Schrödinger equation for the quantum wire in the presence of Coulomb and confining terms. We then calculate the energy and the binding energy of the exciton. By using the obtained energy of exciton, we calculate the corresponding wave length. The comparison of the obtained wave length with the emitted wave length from the semiconductor under study shows a good agreement with experimental results.     

Electric-field control of electron–hole wave functions in a wide quantum well

The electric field dependence of the electron/hole wave function and the radiation energy of an exciton in a Be-δ-doped 80 nm quantum well (QW) is studied experimentally and compared it with variational calculation. The photoluminescence (PL) spectra show Stark shifts depending on the gate electric field and PL intensity of the exciton of the first excited state has a dip in the electric-field dependence which reflects the node of the electron wave function.     

Magneto-optical studies of GainAsInP quantum wells

The optical properties of GainAsInP quantum wells are studied in magnetic fields of up to 16T. A comparison of the absorption and photoluminescence spectra of a series of multiple quantum wells provides evidence that the photoluminescence occurs from excitons in which the hole is localised. This localisation is shown to be present in a highly doped sample with a sheet carrier density of ∼10¹² cm⁻², indicating that the localisation is not screened out by high free carrier densities. A theoretical fit to measured Landau level transitions in a 100Å multiple quantum well allows values for the carrier masses, electron non-parabolicity and exciton binding energy to be determined.     

The magnetoexciton binding energy dependency on aluminium concentration in cylindrical quantum wires

A calculation of the binding energy of an exciton confined in cylindrical quantum wires of GaAs surrounded by (Ga, Al) As in the presence of a uniform magnetic field is reported as a function of wire radius, potential height and magnetic field strength, using effective mass approximation and variational approach techniques. For larger magnetic field strength and aluminium (Al) concentration values, the binding energies get larger as expected and are found to be in good agreement with previous theoretical reports. However, we also observed a shift in the binding energy maxima position to smaller wire radii with increasing magnetic field strength and Al concentration.