The Atomic Structure of the GaAs/AlGaAs Interface and Its Correlation with the Optical Properties of Quantum Wells

Since the classic paper of Weisbuch et al. [1], it has been universally accepted that interfacial roughness, such as monolayer variations in the well-width, strongly affects the optical properties of quantum wells. The optical measurements used to estimate the "island size" at these interfaces have tended in recent years to indicate increasingly large sizes for these islands, with some authors proposing a spacing between interfacial steps approaching 10 um [2].