Abstract
A polariton-based theory of resonant Rayleigh scattering in quantum wells, i.e., the linear elastic scattering of light, near an excitonic resonance is developed to establish the connection between disorder associated with interface defects and the angular dependence of the temporally scattered light under sub-ps resonant excitation of the quantum well. The disorder model is motivated by the development of islands during epitaxial growth of heterostructures. The interplay of the length scales describing the island size and the spatial correlation between islands leads to nontrivial dynamics in the angular dependence of the temporal rise of the resonantly scattered light. It is found that the spatial correlations between defects scatter a substantial part of the photogenerated excitons to large-wave-vector nonradiative surface-polariton states. Hence scattering into these states is not directly observable using the usual far-field optical techniques, but rather contributes to the long-time behavior of the light emitted in time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy. © 1996 The American Physical Society.
- Received 31 May 1996
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.54.14572
©1996 American Physical Society