Single-peak excitonic emission of CdSe ultra-thin quantum wells finished with fractional monolayers

Ultra-thin quantum wells (UTQWs) of CdSe grown by atomic layer epitaxy (ALE) present very interesting features, such as intense excitonic luminescence and relatively narrow width. Grown under adequate conditions only a single excitonic peak is exhibited in the photoluminescence (PL) spectrum, indicating the absence of thickness fluctuations. The PL peak of an UTQW grown with the same nominal thickness presents a blue shift if grown at a higher substrate temperature. This energy shift is attributed to changes in composition: instead of a pure CdSe UQTW we obtain a Zn1-xCdxSe UTQW with Cd content depending on growth temperature. The fact that even changing the growth temperature only a single excitonic peak is observed is interpreted in terms of a homogeneous mixing of the Cd and Zn atoms at the upper interface. The lack of homogeneity would produce islands and terraces, and then thickness fluctuations that would be clearly evident in the PL spectrum. In order to verify this assertion we have grown UTQWs finished with fractional monolayers, around 0.5 ML of CdSe. We produced UTQWs with 2.5, 3 and 3.5 ML and the result is that all the samples presented a single peak, red shifted with increasing CdSe coverage and monotonic increase in the full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) of the emission. This confirms the homogenization of the CdSe-ZnSe interface. (C) 2007 Published by Elsevier Ltd.