Temperature-dependent photoluminescence characterization of compressively strained AlGaInAs quantum wells

A series of compressively strained AlGaInAs quantum well (QW) structures with different annealing treatment durations at 170 °C were investigated by temperature-dependent photoluminescence (PL). An abnormal S-shaped behavior in emission energy and a non-monotone evolution in spectral band width were observed at low temperature. A significant negative linear correlation between full width at half maximum (FWHM) and emission energy at different test temperature was exhibited in samples with different heat treatment durations. The highly linear relation demonstrated that the dependencies and relationships between PL peak energy and FWHM vs temperature are consistent. The anomalous blue shift and concomitant narrowing of FWHM in AlGaInAs QW were affected by lattice strain fluctuations due to the difference of thermal expansion coefficients between adjacent layers and strong carriers' localization at low temperature.