By inserting stacked sheets of nominally 0.7 monolayer CdSe into a ZnSe matrix we create a region with strong resonant excitonic absorption. This leads to an enhancement of the refractive index on the low-energy side of the absorption peak. Efficient waveguiding can thus be achieved without increasing the average refractive index of the active layer with respect to the cladding. Processed high-resolution transmission electron microscopy images show that the CdSe insertions form Cd-rich two-dimensional (Cd, Zn)Se islands with lateral sizes of about 5 nm. The islands act as quantum dots with a three-dimensional confinement for excitons. Zero-phonon gain is observed in the spectral range of excitonic and biexcitonic waveguiding. At high excitation densities excitonic gain is suppressed due to the population of the quantum dots with biexcitons.
A microscopical model is proposed, describing the origin and properties of three closely spaced zero-phonon lines observed in the green Cu band in ZnO:Cu crystals labelled and . These excitations are known to be formed by a charge-transfer reaction with hole bound states. These lines are shown to originate from an intermediately bound exciton of acceptor type, . This sort of exciton, in which both carriers are captured at intermediate-radius orbitals, results from the wurzite-type symmetry of the ZnO:Cu system. The electronic structure obtained for these three intermediately bound excitons enables us to explain their magneto-optic behaviour and to calculate their g-values.
Additionally, we determined the quantum efficiency of both intracentre and exciton transitions by using time-resolved and calorimetric absorption spectroscopy. While no luminescence is observed in ZnS, the exciton states in ZnO are purely radiative only to the ground state, . The picture of an intermediately bound exciton explains the recombination channels and also makes clear the difference between copper states in the ZnS and ZnO systems.
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