Magneto-optical Kerr effect spectroscopy based study of Landé g-factor for holes in GaAs/AlGaAs single quantum wells under low magnetic fields

Results from a magneto-optical Kerr effect (MOKE) spectroscopy study of ground state heavy-hole and light-hole excitons in GaAs/Al0.3Ga0.7As single quantum wells, with widths ranging from 4.3 nm to 14 nm, are presented. A novel setup and signal analysis procedure was adopted whereby polar MOKE measurements in magnetic fields up to 1.8 T could be performed with a conventional H-frame electromagnet. A first principles simulation based procedure used for simultaneously analyzing both the measured Kerr rotation and Kerr ellipticity spectral lineshapes is described in detail. The Zeeman splitting obtained from the above analysis helped to determine the longitudinal Landé g-factors. The hole g-factors were found to vary with well width, ranging from −0.6 to 1.1 for heavy-holes and 6.5 to 8.6 for light-holes. While the heavy-hole g-factor values are in fair agreement with values expected from k·p perturbation theory, no evidence is found to support theoretical predictions of possible well width dependent giant light-hole g-factors in GaAs/AlxGa1–xAs single quantum wells.