Highly confined T-shaped quantum wires

A systematic approach to enhance the one-dimensional confinement energy of AlxGa1-xAs/Al0.3Ga0.7As T-shaped quantum wires is demonstrated. The design of the sample structures is derived from a calculation of the confined T-wire states. The samples are grown by molecular beam epitaxy cleaved edge overgrowth.

We present experimental results, which show a T-wire confinement energy of 54 meV for an optimized sample structure. The temperature dependence of the wire luminescence intensity and decay time is dominated by exciton scattering into the cleaved multiple quantum well structure, with an activation energy comparable to the wire confinement energy.