Strain-induced lateral confinement of excitons in GaAs-AlGaAs quantum well microstructures

Abstract

We report evidence for lateral confinement of excitons within a continuous two-dimensional GaAs-AlGaAs quantum well. The confinement to ‘‘wires’’ within the well was produced by partially etching a pattern through the upper AlGaAs barrier. We propose a new mechanism, that of patterned strain, for lateral quantum confinement of carriers in semiconductor microstructures, to explain our results.