Structural and magnetic confinement of holes in the spin-polarized emission of coupled quantum ring-quantum dot chains

The optical analysis of multilayer structures formed from the topmost layer of InGaAs/GaAs quantum rings (QRs) grown on a vertically stacked and laterally aligned InGaAs/GaAs quantum dot (QD) superlattice has been performed to elucidate the nature of the contribution from each layer. These hybrid structures representing a coupled QR chain layer and the layers of self-assembled QD chains display strong optical anisotropy. Unusually strong oscillations are observed in the circularly polarized photoluminescence (PL) intensities under magnetic field for emissions in the spectral range of the QD structure and these oscillations occur simultaneously with weaker oscillations related to the Aharonov-Bohm interference that modulates the emissions from the QR top layer of the structure. The behavior seen in the magneto-PL spectrum is interpreted in terms of joint effects associated to strain, spatial, and magnetic field confinements on the valence band states forming the magnetoexciton ground state of this multilayered structure. The result can be ascribed to a magnetically induced dark exciton contribution where the heavy-hole (type II) state becomes localized outside, whereas light-hole (type I) as well as electron states remain inside the spatial confinement area of the QD.