Cathodoluminescence study of diluted magnetic semiconductor quantum well/micromagnet hybrid structures

Cathodoluminescence (CL) was studied in hybrid structures consisting of a diluted magnetic semiconductor (DMS) Cd1-xMnxTe (x=0.06 and 0.09) quantum well buried 300 Angstrom below the surface on which Fe islands with micrometric dimensions were deposited. The CL at T=10 K collected from areas far away from the Fe island was consistent with the photoluminescence spectra obtained prior to Fe deposition as were the raster scans and spot excited CL spectra taken in nonmagnetized structures close to the Fe islands. After a magnetization at a magnetic field of 3 T, the CL peak related to DMS quantum well (QW) shifts by up to 4 meV to lower energy only when the exciting beam is focused close to edges of an island. The observed shifts are interpreted as due to a fringe field, affecting the DMS QW, of magnetic domains formed in the Fe islands. The experiments prove a feasibility of the concept of usage of the fringe fields to achieve further confinement of excitons in submicron DMS/ferromagnet hybrid structures. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.