EXTREME OPTICAL ANISOTROPY IN STRAINED (110) QUANTUM-WELLS

The effects of strain on optical anisotropy in (110) GaxIn1-xAs quantum wells (QW's) are compared within a multiband effective-mass approximation between two cases: (1) when a uniaxial compressive stress is externally applied normal to the QW plane, and (2) when an in-plane internal biaxial tensile strain is induced due to a lattice mismatch. In both cases it is shown that the lowest interband transition can be tuned by the strain so that it is forbidden for light linear-polarized along one of the principal axes in the QW plane. However, the in-plane polarization direction for which the transition is forbidden in the two cases is perpendicular to each other, i.e., [001] for case (1) and [110] for case (2). © 1992.