Optical anisotropy in [hkil]-oriented wurtzite semiconductor quantum wells

Abstract

An 8×8 band edge potential matrix of the [hkil]-oriented wurtzite Hamiltonian is developed and applied to explore optical anisotropy in [hkil]-oriented wurtzite semiconductor quantum wells. The wave-vector-dependent optical matrix elements are expressed entirely in terms of Hamiltonian matrix elements, thus avoiding the requirement to introduce any additional optical parameters. To accommodate the noncubic symmetry of the wurtzite lattice, spinor rotation is taken into account when performing the calculations for different crystal orientations. The optical matrix elements are formulated and calculated for both the real finite-barrier-height case and the approximate infinite-barrier-height case. It is found that giant anisotropy of the optical matrix elements appears in the [101¯0]- and [101¯2]-oriented well planes.