Effect of disorder on the temperature dependence of radiative lifetimes in V-groove quantum wires

TL;DR

This study investigates how disorder affects the temperature-dependent radiative lifetimes in V-groove quantum wires, revealing deviations from ideal models at low temperatures and extending theory to include disorder effects.

Contribution

The paper develops an extended theoretical model accounting for disorder, exciton ionization, and free carriers in quantum wires, and estimates exciton localization length from experimental data.

Findings

Disorder significantly influences radiative lifetimes at low temperatures.

Extended theory better explains experimental results than previous models.

Estimated exciton localization length at 8 K.

Abstract

We have studied the effect of disorder on the radiative properties of semiconductor quantum wires by time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy. The dependence of the radiative lifetimes is measured over a temperature range extending from 8 to 150 K. At low temperatures we find that the measured dependence does not conform to the theoretical prediction for recombination of free excitons in a quasi one-dimensional system due to the major influence of disorder. An extension of the theory is developped in order to take into account exciton ionization and the contribution of free carriers. A mean localization length for excitons is also estimated from the radiative lifetime at 8 K.