Second-harmonic scanning optical microscopy of semiconductor quantum dots

Second-harmonic (SH) optical imaging of self-assembled InAlGaAs quantum dots (QD's) grown on a GaAs(0 0 1) substrate has been accomplished at room temperature by use of respectively a scanning far-field optical microscope in reflection mode and a scanning near-field optical microscope in transmission mode. In both cases the SH signal peaks at a pump wavelength of similar to 885 nm in correspondence to the maximum in the photoluminescence spectrum of the QD sample. SH near-field optical images exhibit spatial signal variations on a subwavelength scale that depend on the pump wavelength. We attribute this feature to inhomogeneous broadening of the QD energy states. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.