Room temperature emission in narrow (14nm) Cd0.35Zn0.65Se/ZnSe quantum wires with strong lateral confinement effects

We have fabricated deep etched Cd0.35Zn0.65Se/ZnSe quantum wires with lateral extensions down to 14 nm. The wires were defined by electron beam lithography and a low damage wet chemical etch process. Time-integrated and time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy was used to study excitonic properties in ultranarrow wide bandgap quantum wires, Lateral quantization causes a blue shift of the photoluminescence emission of up to 17 meV with respect to the 2D reference. A low temperature (T = 2 K) lifetime of about 110 ps was found, almost independent of the wire width, At room temperature, non-radiative sidewall recombination reduces the exciton lifetime from 330 ps for the 2D reference to about 21 ps in the case of a 28 nm wide wire.