Anomaly in the in-plane polarization properties of (110)-oriented quantum wells under [110] uniaxial stress

The effects of uniaxial stress on the polarization properties of interband transitions are studied for (110) quantum wells under stress along the [110] axis. Within a multiband effective-mass approximation, an analytical method for calculating the hole energy levels as well as the optical transition matrix elements is presented. The calculated result for a (110) GaAs/${\mathrm{Al}}_{0.3}$ ${\mathrm{Ga}}_{0.7}$As quantum well shows anticrossing behavior between the first two hole subbands in the compression dependence of the energy levels. It is shown that the dipole transition between the first electron state and the first hole state is forbidden for [001]-polarized light at a critical stress just beyond the anticrossing region, while that between the first electron and the second hole state becomes a forbidden transition for [1¯10] polarization at a different critical stress just before the anticrossing.