Mg. Alessi et al., Competition between radiative decay and energy relaxation of carriers in disordered InxGa1-xAs/GaAs quantum wells, PHYS REV B, 61(16), 2000, pp. 10985-10993
Photoluminescence (PL) and excitation PL measurements have been performed a
t different temperatures, excitation energies, and power densities in a num
ber of strained InxGa1-xAs quantum wells where the fluctuations in the pote
ntial energy were comparable with the thermal energy. This has allowed us t
o observe a full series of anomalous temperature dependencies. These featur
es, including some subtle ones, follow from the competition of thermalizati
on and the degree of disorder in the samples. They are all accounted for by
a theoretical model, which takes into account the excitons' radiative deca
y and phonon scattering in a disordered potential on an equal footing. Thus
the interplay between finite lifetime and relaxation/thermalization is inc
luded in detail.