Magnetophonon resonance in photoluminescence excitation spectra of magnetoexcitons in GaAs/Al0.3Ga0.7As superlattice

A strong increase in the intensity of the peaks of excited magnetoexciton (ME) states in the photoluminescence excitation (PLE) spectra recorded for the ground heavy-hole magnetoexcitons (of the 1sHH type) has been found in a GaAs/Al0.3Ga0.7As superlattice in strong magnetic field B applied normal to the sample layers.

While varying B, the intensities of the PLE peaks have been measured as functions of energy separation Delta E between excited ME peaks and the ground state of the system. The resonance profiles have been found to have maxima at Delta E-max close to the energy of the GaAs LO phonon. However, the value of Delta E-max depends on quantum numbers of the excited ME state.

The revealed very low quantum efficiency of the investigated sample allows us to ascribe the observed resonance to the enhancement of the nonradiative magnetoexciton relaxation rate arising due to LO-phonon emission. The presented theoretical model, being in a good agreement with experimental observations, provides a method to extract 1sHH magnetoexciton "in-plane" dispersion from the dependence of Delta E-max on the excited ME state quantum numbers.