Intrinsic radiative lifetime derived via absorption cross section of one-dimensional excitons

Sci Rep. 2013:3:1941. doi: 10.1038/srep01941.

Abstract

Intrinsic radiative lifetime is an essential physical property of low-dimensional excitons that represents their optical transition rate and wavefunction, which directly measures the probability of finding an electron and a hole at the same position in an exciton. However, the conventional method that is used to determine this property via measuring the temperature-dependent photoluminescence (PL) decay time involves uncertainty due to various extrinsic contributions at high temperatures. Here, we propose an alternative method to derive the intrinsic radiative lifetime via temperature-independent measurement of the absorption cross section and transformation using Einstein's A-B-coefficient equations derived for low-dimensional excitons. We experimentally verified our approach for one-dimensional (1D) excitons in high-quality 14 × 6 nm(2) quantum wires by comparing it to the conventional approach. Both independent evaluations showed good agreement with each other and with theoretical predictions. This approach opens a promising path to studying low-dimensional exciton physics.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Absorption
  • Electrons*
  • Luminescent Measurements*
  • Microscopy, Electron, Transmission
  • Optics and Photonics*
  • Quantum Dots*
  • Scattering, Radiation
  • Surface Properties
  • Temperature