Dependence of the exciton transition on the CdTe well width in CdTe/ZnTe strained single quantum wells

CdTe/ZnTe strained single quantum well structures with various CdTe well wi dths were grown on GaAs (100) substrates by using the hot wall epitaxy tech nique. X-ray diffraction measurements were performed to characterize the st ructural properties of the CdTe/ZnTe quantum wells. Photoluminescence (PL) measurements on the CdTe/ZnTe strained single quantum wells showed that the sharp excitonic peaks corresponding to the transitions from the 1st electr onic subband to the 1st heavy-hole band (E1-HH1) were shifted to lower ener gy with increasing well width. The electronic subband energies and the wave functions were calculated by using an envelope function approximation takin g into account the strain effects, and the theoretical values of the (E1-HH 1) interband transitions were in reasonable agreement with those obtained f rom the (E1-HH1) excitonic transitions of the PL spectra. These results ind icate that CdTe/ZnTe strained single quantum wells hold promise for potenti al applications in short-wavelength optoelectronic devices.