Photoluminescence studies of sidewall properties of dry-etched InGaAs/InP quantum wires

Abstract
InGaAs/InP quantum wires with widths ranging from 200 to 40 nm have been fabricated using high‐resolution electron‐beam lithography and CH4/H2 reactive‐ion etching. The excitation intensity dependence of the photoluminescence (PL) energies and line shapes for relatively wide wires (∼100 nm) exhibits the effects of band filling in k space and band‐gap renormalization due to many‐body effects in dense electron‐hole plasmas (EHP). In the narrowest wires studied (∼40 nm), the effects of sidewall surface recombination limit the attainable EHP density. In addition, the results show a blue shift of PL energies when wire width decreases below 100 nm.