Capture and thermal re-emission of carriers in long-wavelength InGaAs/GaAs quantum dots

Abstract

We investigate the ultrafast carrier dynamics in metalorganic chemical vapor deposition-grown InGaAs/GaAs quantum dots emitting at 1.3 μm. Time-resolved photoluminescence upconversion measurements show that the carriers photoexcited in the barriers relax to the quantum-dot ground state within a few picoseconds. At low temperatures and high carrier densities, the relaxation dynamics is dominated by carrier–carrier scattering. In contrast, at room temperature, the dominant relaxation process for electrons is scattering between quantum-dot levels via multiple longitudinal optical (LO)-phonon emission. The reverse process, i.e., multiple LO-phonon absorption, governs the thermal re-emission of electrons from the quantum-dot ground state.