Excitation and temperature dependence of the broad gain spectrum in GaAs/AlGaAs quantum rings

We have employed a variable stripe length method in order to measure the optical gain of GaAs/AlGaAs quantum rings. Although the large lateral diameter of quantum rings (∼ 50 nm) with a few nm size distribution is expected to cause a small spectral inhomogeneity (∼ 1 %), a broad gain width (∼ 300 meV) was observed. This result was attributed to a variation of the vertical heights and variations in localized states that exhibit crescent shaped wavefunctions, whereby the energy levels are distributed over a broad spectral range. When the excitation intensity is decreased, irregular peaks appear in the gain spectrum gradually. Similar phenomena were also observed with increased temperature. We conclude that excited carriers in quantum rings are distributed stochastically at various localized states, and the population inversion is sensitive to excitation intensity and temperature