Strong lateral quantization effects in the luminescence of InGaAs/InP quantum wires

Abstract

We have fabricated In 0.53Ga 0.47As/InP quantum wires with lateral widths down to 8 nm by high voltage electron beam lithography and deep wet chemical etching. The wires were studied by photoluminescence spectroscopy at room temperature and at 2 K. We observe only a weak decrease of the luminescence yield with decreasing wire width, which indicates that no significant damage has been induced at the sidewalls of the wires during the fabrication process. For wires with widths smaller than about 60 nm an increasing blue shift of the photoluminescence energy up to about 75 meV (for 8 nm wide wires) is observed indicating a strong lateral quantization. The photoluminescence emission of the wires is strongly polarized parallel to the wire orientation with increasing polarization degree for decreasing wire width.