OPTICAL-PROPERTIES OF ETCHED GAAS/GAALAS QUANTUM WIRES AND DOTS

We show that very narrow wires and dots, exhibiting reduced dimensionality features, can be obtained through etching from a single quantum well structure. The importance of surface cleaning and passivation is emphasized. The low temperature optical data obtained on arrays of wires and dots allow us to estimate quantitatively the size regularity. The peculiar behaviour of the photoluminescence intensity is attributed to huge electrodynamic effects while the predicted intrinsic limitations imposed by slowed-down energy relaxation are not evidenced. We finally present experimental photoluminescence and photoluminescence excitation spectra obtained on single wires, as small as 6 x 25 x 135 nm3.