Study of quantum well wires of different widths produced by reactive ion etching and anodic oxidation

We have fabricated AlGaAs/GaAs quantum well wires (QWW) with various lateral widths down to 20 nm by anodic oxidation of a 100 nm QWW initially produced by low-energy reactive ion etching. The wires were studied by photoluminescence spectroscopy at 77 K. The expected blue shift of the PL energy was observed as the QWW width was reduced, reaching 16 meV for 20 nm wires. The decrease of the PL signal from the QWW was only a factor of two for a five times reduction in the QWW width.