Interface phenomena and optical properties of structurally confined InP quantum wire ensembles

Three-dimensional regular ensembles of InP quantum wires have been produced in channels of porous dielectric matrices by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition. These matrices differ both in the diameter of the channels (0.7, 3, and 8 nm) and in their spatial arrangement. The InP layer thickness does not exceed two-three monolayers. A comparative study of Raman, optical absorption, and photoluminescence spectra revealed the dependence of the optical properties of these quantum wires on interface effects, namely, atomic interaction in the wires, wire-matrix, and wire-wire interactions. It is shown that the wire-matrix interaction distorts the InP lattice, broadens the wire electronic density-of-states spectrum in the vicinity of the fundamental gap, and redistributes the relaxation of photoinduced excitations among states belonging to the wire itself and to defects in the matrix bound to the wire.