No Arabic abstract
Photoluminescence (PL) and reflectivity spectra of a high-quality InGaAs/GaAs quantum well structure reveal a series of ultra-narrow peaks attributed to the quantum confined exciton states. The intensity of these peaks decreases as a function of temperature, while the linewidths demonstrate a complex and peculiar behavior. At low pumping the widths of all peaks remain quite narrow ($< 0.1$ meV) in the whole temperature range studied, $4 - 30K$. At the stronger pumping, the linewidth first increases and than drops down with the temperature rise. Pump-probe experiments show two characteristic time scales in the exciton decay, $< 10$ps and $15 - 45ns$, respectively. We interpret all these data by an interplay between the exciton recombination within the light cone, the exciton relaxation from a non-radiative reservoir to the light cone, and the thermal dissociation of the non-radiative excitons. The broadening of the low energy exciton lines is governed by the radiative recombination and scattering with reservoir excitons while for the higher energy states the linewidths are also dependent on the acoustic phonon relaxation processes.
Spin dephasing via the spin-orbit interaction (SOI) is a major mechanism limiting the electron spin lifetime in III-V zincblende quantum wells. The dephasing can be suppressed in GaAs(111) quantum wells by applying an electric field. The suppression has been attributed to the compensation of the intrinsic SOI associated by the bulk inversion asymmetry (BIA) of the GaAs lattice by a structural induced asymmetry (SIA) SOI term induced by an electric field. We provide direct experimental evidence for this mechanism by demonstrating the transition between the BIA-dominated to a SIA-dominated regime via photoluminescence measurements carried out over a wide range of applied fields. Spin lifetimes exceeding 100~ns are obtained near the compensating electric field, thus making GaAs (111) QWs excellent candidates for the electrical storage and manipulation of spins.
We designed and performed low temperature DC transport characterization studies on two-dimensional electron gases confined in lattice-matched In$_{0.53}$Ga$_{0.47}$As/In$_{0.52}$Al$_{0.48}$As quantum wells grown by molecular beam epitaxy on InP substrates. The nearly constant mobility for samples with the setback distance larger than 50nm and the similarity between the quantum and transport life-time suggest that the main scattering mechanism is due to short range scattering, such as alloy scattering, with a scattering rate of 2.2 ps$^{-1}$. We also obtain the Fermi level at the In$_{0.53}$Ga$_{0.47}$As/In$_{0.52}$Al$_{0.48}$As surface to be 0.36eV above the conduction band, when fitting our experimental densities with a Poisson-Schrodinger model.
Negative longitudinal magnetoresistances (NLMRs) have been recently observed in a variety of topological materials and often considered to be associated with Weyl fermions that have a defined chirality. Here we report NLMRs in non-Weyl GaAs quantum wells. In the absence of a magnetic field the quantum wells show a transition from semiconducting-like to metallic behaviour with decreasing temperature. We observed pronounced NLMRs up to 9 Tesla at temperatures above the transition and weak NLMRs in low magnetic fields at temperatures close to the transition and below 5 K. The observed NLMRs show various types of magnetic field behaviour resembling those reported in topological materials. We attribute them to microscopic disorder and use a phenomenological three-resistor model to account for their various features. Our results showcase a new contribution of microscopic disorder in the occurrence of novel phenomena. They may stimulate further work on tuning electronic properties via disorder/defect nano-engineering.
Polariton lattice condensates provide a platform for on chip quantum emulations. Interactions in extended polariton lattices are currently limited by the intrinsic photonic disorder of microcavities. Here, we fabricate a strain compensated planar GaAs/AlAs microcavity with embedded InGaAs quantum wells and report on polariton condensation under non-resonant optical excitation. Evidence of polariton condensation is supported spectroscopically both in reflection and transmission geometry, whilst the observation of a second threshold to photon lasing allows us to conclusively distinguish between the strong- and weak-coupling non-linear regimes.
Dynamics of nonradiative excitons with large in-plane wave vectors forming a so-called reservoir is experimentally studied in a high-quality semiconductor structure containing a 14-nm shallow GaAs/Al$_{0.03}$Ga$_{0.97}$As quantum well by means of the non-degenerate pump-probe spectroscopy. The exciton dynamics is visualized via the dynamic broadening of the heavy-hole and light-hole exciton resonances caused by the exciton-exciton scattering. Under the non-resonant excitation free carriers are optically generated. In this regime the exciton dynamics is strongly affected by the exciton-carrier scattering. In particular, if the carriers of one sign are prevailing, they efficiently deplete the reservoir of the nonradiative excitons inducing their scattering into the light cone. A simple model of the exciton dynamics is developed, which considers the energy relaxation of photocreated electrons and holes, their coupling into excitons, and exciton scattering into the light cone. The model well reproduces the exciton dynamics observed experimentally both at the resonant and nonresonant excitation. Moreover, it correctly describes the profiles of the photoluminescence pulses studied experimentally. The efficient exciton-electron interaction is further experimentally verified by the control of the exciton density in the reservoir when an additional excitation creates electrons depleting the reservoir.