Wurtzite MnSe as a barrier for CdSe quantum wells with built-in electric field

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the use of wurtzite MnSe as a barrier in CdSe quantum wells, revealing a built-in electric field that affects optical properties, and introduces a novel platform for studying altermagnetism and electric fields in low-dimensional structures.

Contribution

First demonstration of visible-light-emitting CdSe quantum wells with wurtzite MnSe as a barrier, highlighting the presence of a significant built-in electric field.

Findings

Built-in electric field of 14 MV/m in the quantum wells.

Electric field influences emission energies and recombination dynamics.

Wurtzite MnSe serves as a promising platform for studying altermagnetism.

Abstract

Altermagnetic materials have attracted a lot of attention recently due to the numerous effects, which have an application potential and occur due to the spin-split band structure coexisting with the compensated magnetic order. Incorporation of such intriguing compounds into low-dimensional structures represents an important avenue towards exploiting and enhancing their functionalities. Prominent examples of this group are semiconductors well suited to the band-gap engineering strategies. Here, we present for the first time visible-light-emitting CdSe quantum wells, in which wurtzite MnSe as an alermagnetic candidate plays the role of a barrier. Photoluminescence experiments with temporal resolution demonstrate that in such quantum wells, a built-in electric field is present and strongly influences the energies of the emitted photons, the dynamics of recombination, and excitation power dependence. Numerical simulations allow us to estimate that the magnitude of the electric field is 14MV/m. We anticipate that such quantum wells offer potential to probe the barrier properties and that wurtzite MnSe is an interesting platform to study the interplay of the altermagnetism and built-in electric field.