The mechanism for low-temperature photoluminescence (PL) emissions in GaAsSb/AlGaAs and GaAsSbN/GaAs strained-layer single quantum wells (SQWs), grown by molecular-beam epitaxy, is studied in detail, using PL spectroscopy as a function of temperature and excitation intensity. In all samples, the PL peak energy as well as the full width at half maximum (FWHM), as a function of temperature, present anomalous behaviors, i.e., the PL peak energy shows a successive red/blue/redshift (S-shaped behavior) and the FWHM shows a successive blue/red/blueshift ("inverted S-shaped curve") with increasing temperature. At sufficiently low excitation intensity and in a narrow temperature interval (50-80 K), the nitrogen-containing samples present two clear competitive PL peaks. The low-energy PL mechanism (8-80 K) is dominated by localized PL transitions, while the high-energy PL mechanism is dominated by the ground state (e1-hh1) PL transition. Additionally, these PL peaks show different temperature dependence with the low-energy PL peak, showing a stronger redshift than the high-energy PL peak. A competition process between localized and delocalized excitons is used to discuss these PL properties.

In this paper, we discuss the tunneling time of a quantum particle through a rectangular barrier. The reflection and transmission times associated with the wave packets representing the particle are discussed. By using an initial Gaussian momentum distribution, we carry out a comparative analysis of the stationary phases of the incident, reflected, and transmitted wave packets leading to the reflection and transmission times ⌬t R and ⌬t T , respectively. In the present treatment of this old and very known problem we take into account the deformations of the reflected and transmitted momentum distributions. These deformations produce a dependence of the reflection and transmission times on the location of the initial wave packet. In a parallel calculation, by numerically monitoring the time evolution of the system, we characterize a reflection and a transmission time. Such times agree with the ones obtained via the stationary phase method.

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We present effective-mass calculations of the bound-state energy levels of electrons confined inside lens-shaped In x Ga1−x As quantum dots (QDs) embedded in a GaAs matrix, taking into account the strain as well as the In gradient inside the QDs due to the strong In segregation and In-Ga intermixing present in the In x Ga1−x As/GaAs system. In order to perform the calculations, we used a continuum model for the strain, and the QDs and wetting layer were divided into their constituting monolayers, each one with a different In concentration, to be able to produce a specific composition profile. Our results clearly show that the introduction of such effects is very important if one desires to correctly reproduce or predict the optoelectronic properties of these nanostructures.

We present anisotropic nonparabolic position-dependent effective-mass calculations of the bound energy levels of electrons confined in lens-shaped InxGa1−xAs quantum dots embedded in a GaAs matrix. The strain and In gradient inside the quantum dots and their wetting layer (due to the strong In segregation effect present in the InxGa1−xAs/GaAs system) were taken into account. The bound eigenstates and eigenenergies of electrons in a finite 3D confinement potential were determined by the full numerical diagonalization of the Hamiltonian. The quantum dots and their wetting layer were sliced into a finite number of monolayers parallel to the substrate surface, each one with a specific In concentration, in order to be able to reproduce any composition profile along the growth direction. A comparison between the eigenenergies of the “pure” InAs quantum dots and the quantum dots with an inhomogeneous In content indicates that In segregation dramatically affects their electronic structure and must be taken into account if one wishes to accurately simulate the real optoelectronic properties of such nanostructures.