CW and time resolved luminescence study of dry etch damage in semiconductor wires

We have investigated the impact of dry etch sidewall damage on the optical properties of GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wires defined by high-resolution electron beam lithography. Spatially resolved cw and picosecond photoluminescence spectroscopy was used to characterize the dry etch damage at the wire sidewalls. Modeling the experimental results by solving the steady-state and time-dependent diffusion problems, we find that the sidewall effects can be described in terms of a sidewall recombination velocity and of an optically inactive, "dead" layer. © 1990.