Valence band anti-crossing in GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells under tensile biaxial strain

Abstract

We present here the study of the effects of the biaxial tensile strain on the optical properties in GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells using low-temperature photoluminescence and photoluminescence excitation techniques. We used a pressure cell that permits to apply a biaxial tensile strain on an epitaxial film up to ∼ 0.3 % (for GaAs). The strain was determined by the energy shift of the excitonic recombination of the own GaAs buffer layer of the sample. The results of the optical measurements show clear the strain effects on the light and heavy hole excitons transitions and also show their anti-crossing. This new results show that this system is appropriated to study optical properties involving resonant phenomena in semiconductor quantum wells. © 2004 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.