Magnetic-field-dependent excitation transfer in quantum wells of diluted magnetic semiconductor

We studied the excitation transfer in double quantum wells of a diluted magnetic semiconductor using a scanning near-field optical microscope at 7 K in external magnetic fields up to 9 T. In each quantum well, local energy minima are generated by local fluctuation of layer thickness and doping concentration of magnetic components. Excitons relax into the local energy minima and transfer between the minima via near-field optical interactions even across quantum wells toward stable sites at which to localize. We measured the intensity maps of near-field photoluminescence with spatial resolution estimated to be 30 nm under varying external magnetic fields. The measurement position reproducibility was confirmed by scanning tunneling microscope images. Analysis of the maps derived the magnetic-field dependence of the typical size of exciton-localization sites for each quantum well. Based on these results, we investigated the excitation transfer between the two quantum wells lying in different layers of the double quantum well system, and showed that the exciton transfer takes place at the two specific applied magnetic-field intensities that result in the crossing of Zeeman-split energy levels of the two different wells. We concluded that both the localization and the inter-quantum-well transfer of excitons are able to be controlled by an external magnetic field. This provides the basis for functional devices operating without any wiring.