Temperature dependence of the lowest excitonic transition for an InAs ultrathin quantum well

Temperature dependent photoluminescence and photoreflectance techniques are used to investigate the lowest excitonic transition of InAs ultrathin quantum well. It is shown that the temperature dependence of the lowest energy transition follows the band gap variation of GaAs barrier, which is well reproduced by calculated results based on the envelope function approximation with significant corrections due to strain and temperature dependences of the confinement potential. A redshift in photoluminescence peak energy compared to photoreflectance is observed at low temperatures. This is interpreted to show that the photoluminescence signal originates from the recombination of carriers occupying the band-tail states below the lowest critical point.