Decrease of heavy-hole exciton mass induced by uniaxial stress in GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates experimentally and theoretically that applying uniaxial stress along the symmetry axis of a GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well reduces the heavy-hole exciton mass by about 5%, affecting polariton spectra.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental evidence and theoretical explanation of stress-induced heavy-hole exciton mass decrease in wide quantum wells.

Findings

Uniaxial stress modifies polariton reflectance spectra.

Heavy-hole exciton mass decreases by approximately 5%.

Theoretical modeling supports experimental results.

Abstract

It is experimentally shown that the pressure applied along the twofold symmetry axis of a heterostructure with a wide GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well leads to considerable modification of the polariton reflectance spectra. This effect is treated as the stress-induced decrease of the heavy-hole exciton mass. Theoretical modeling of the effect supports this assumption. The 5\%-decrease of the exciton mass is obtained at pressure P=0.23 GPa.