Abstract

The heavy hole exciton in GaAs/AlGaAs multiple quantum wells is inhomogeneously broadened due in large part to well width fluctuations. Because of the inhomogeneous broadening, a measurement of the absorption profile is a convolution of the natural exciton profile and the inhomogeneous broadening distribution. That is to say, if f (ω-ω) is the lineshape of the heavy hole exciton centered at frequency ω_o, then the measured aborption profile is proportional to ∫P (ω_o) f (ω-ω_o) dω_o where P(ω_o) is the probability of the exciton resonance being centered at ω_o In the absence of additional information, it is difficult to obtain detailed information regarding the fora of f (ω-ω_o). Furthermore, in the usual case, the width associated with f (ω-ω_o) is usually much smaller than the width associated with the distribution function. Hence, it usually becomes necessary to resort to alternative optical methods for measurement.

© 1988 Optical Society of America