Cathodoluminescence study of GaAs quantum wells and of submicron dots fabricated by magnetron reactive ion etching

Cathodoluminescence has been employed to investigate the luminescence and lateral transport properties of excited carriers at 8 K in GaAs-AlGaAs quantum well material and in submicron features fabricated in this material by magnetron reactive ion etching. A carrier diffusion length of 0.85+/-0.04 mu m in quantum wells and a surface recombination velocity (5.4+/-0.8)x 10(3) m/s at etched sidewalls were measured. Also, the effect of feature size on luminescence efficiency was examined and compared with model calculations using the measured values of diffusion length and surface recombination velocity. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.