Photoluminescence studies of InGaAs/InAlAs strained double quantum wells

Photoluminescence measurements have been performed on a In0.82Ga0.18As/In0.52Al0.48As strained double quantum wells with narrow well widths of 38 and 48 Å. The band offset ratio Qc in this narrow quantum well structures was found to be 0.70±0.01. Based on a steady-state photoluminescence model, the temperature and laser excitation dependences of the luminescence intensity allow us to conclude that the thermal quenching of luminescence is controlled by the quantum transport of the photogenerated carriers for temperature below 125 K, while the dominant luminescence quenching mechanism above 150 K is a thermally activated detrapping of carriers from the wells into barriers, followed by nonradiative recombination in the barriers.