Quantum wire structures with semimagnetic barriers, ZnSe/(Zn, Mn)Se, a
nd different buffer layers are investigated by magnetoluminescense in
magnetic fields up to 40 T at 4 K. For the lowest energy state the in
situ grown wires always show a stronger shift towards lower energies b
y up to 10 meV as compared to the unpatterned quantum well reference,
without saturation of the shift in both cases. This energy difference
increases with stronger magnetic field only for wire structures grown
on a superlattice buffer indicating clearly the influence of the aniso
tropic strain behavior. The field-dependent magneto-optical anisotropy
parallel and perpendicular to the growth direction is significant, up
to 17 meV, at higher magnetic field, whereas the anisotropy parallel
and perpendicular to the wire axis is less pronounced, at 4 meV. The o
bserved high-field data of patterned and unpatterned samples allow the
direct evaluation of the confinement contribution to the energy. (C)
1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.