Evaluation of exciton absorption peak broadening factors in InGaAsP/InP multiple quantum wells

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Abstract
We evaluated the magnitude of broadening factors of ground‐state exciton absorption peaks in In1−xGaxAsyP1−y/InP (x=0.47y) multiple quantum wells (MQW’s) with about 10 nm wells. The absorption peaks broadened with a decrease of y. Analyzing the absorption peak broadening with increasing temperature, the thermal broadening factor at 300 K was found to be about 9 meV and composition independent. Analyzing the photoluminescence linewidth at 4.2 K, it was found that composition fluctuations in the well caused an inhomogeneity of the exciton energy level of 4.4 meV for the y=1.0 MQW and 7.5 meV for the y=0.6 MQW, being the greatest contributors to inhomogeneous broadening. We conclude that the exciton absorption peak broadening with a decrease of y is primarily due to the increase of composition fluctuations.