Optical orientation of bright excitons in InAs/GaAs quantum dots: Influence of a Faraday magnetic field and the dark exciton states

Abstract

We study the injection of polarized bright and dark excitons in quantum dots, under nonresonant or resonant excitation, by polarization-resolved photoluminescence experiments on an ensemble of self-assembled InAs/GaAs quantum dots. The importance of the polarized dark exciton creation on the optical emission under magnetic field is discussed. Under circular excitation, we observe the expected increase and saturation of the polarization rate with a magnetic field applied in Faraday geometry. Strikingly, the polarization rate slightly decreases for magnetic fields greater than \ensuremath{\sim}1.5 T; the feature is more pronounced for higher interband energies and is attributed to a more efficient initial polarization of the dark exciton states. This interpretation is confirmed by the lack of decrease of the polarization rate for quantum dots excited at exact resonance through a 1LO-phonon-assisted transition. Finally, we measure the bright exciton exchange energy as a function of interband emission energy, we measure a decrease from 65 to 30 \ensuremath{\mu}eV in the range 1.28--1.35 eV, and we obtain an estimate of the dark exciton splitting.