Excitation and pressure effects on low temperature photoluminescence from GaAs/GaInP heterostructures

We report for the first time the results of a study of 11 K photoluminescence (PL) measurements of metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy grown GaAs/GaInP quantum wells at pressures up to ∼5 GPa and examine the effects of laser excitation energy and intensity. The use of low temperature allows us to study the true nature of a peak at ∼1.46 eV, which dominates instead of the GaAs QW emission, even at very low excitation intensities to pressures well above the r-X crossover in GaInP. Our results suggest that the ∼1.46 eV emission is a spatially indirect transition of electrons and holes separated at the interface in a type-II band alignment.