Phonon-assisted luminescence of magnetoexcitons in semiconductor quantum wells

Abstract

We consider a line-shape of magnetoexciton photoluminescence from quantum wells when the disorder is sufficiently small. In this case the phonon-assisted optical transitions become important for the line formation. We study both inter-band and intra-band excitons. For inter-band excitons the width of a single peak emission line is calculated as a function of temperature and quantum well width. For intra-band excitons the double peak of the emission line is predicted when the electron filling factor is odd and greater or equal to three. In the latter case the lowest magnetoexciton dispersion curve has a minimum at non-zero momentum. Then the higher-energy peak results from the direct optical emission of zero-momentum excitons. The origin of the lower-energy peak is the phonon-assisted transitions from the non-zero momentum exciton states. With increasing temperature, the higher-energy peak becomes more pronounced and the lower-energy peak vanishes.