Abstract
The degree and orientation of the magnetic-field induced linear polarization of the photoluminescence from a wide range of heterostructures containing (001) (Cd,Mn)Te quantum wells between (Cd,Mn,Mg)Te barriers has been studied as a function of detection photon energy and of the strength and direction of a magnetic field applied in the plane of the quantum well. Three field-induced contributions to the linear polarization of the photoluminescence are observed which differ in their dependence on the angle, , between the magnetic field and the [110] direction, being, respectively, independent of , varying as , and as . A theoretical description of each of these contributions in terms of an in-plane deformation acting on the valence band states is presented and verified by comparison with the experimental data. In our model, we account for the possibility that the in-plane deformations are distributed in both magnitude and direction. We conclude that it is possible to account for the magnetic-field induced linear polarization of the photoluminescence via in-plane deformations and without invoking terms in the valence band spin Hamiltonian which are cubic in . The models developed in the present paper apply in full measure to nonmagnetic quantum wells as well as ensembles of disklike quantum dots with shape and/or strain anisotropy.
3 More- Received 7 June 2006
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.74.195338
©2006 American Physical Society