A light-hole exciton is a quasiparticle formed from a single electron bound to a single light hole. This type of fundamental excitation, if confined inside a semiconductor quantum dot, could be advantageous in quantum information science and technology. However, it has been difficult to access it so far, because confinement and strain in conventional quantum dots favour a ground-state single-particle hole with a predominantly heavy-hole character. Here we demonstrate the creation of a light-hole exciton ground state by applying elastic stress to an initially unstrained quantum dot. Its signature is clearly distinct from that of the well-known heavy-hole exciton and consists of three orthogonally polarized bright optical transitions and a fine-structure splitting of hundreds of microelectronvolts between in-plane and out-of-plane components. This work paves the way for the exploration of the fundamental properties and of the potential relevance of three-dimensionally confined light-hole states in quantum technologies.

We perform polarization-resolved magneto-optical measurements on single InAsP quantum dots embedded in an InP nanowire. In order to determine all elements of the electron and hole g-factor tensors, we measure in magnetic field with different orientations. The results of these measurements are in good agreement with a model based on exchange terms and Zeeman interaction. In our experiment, polarization analysis delivers a powerful tool that not only significantly increases the precision of the measurements, but also enables us to probe the exciton spin state evolution in magnetic fields. We propose a disentangling scheme of heavy-hole exciton spins enabling a measurement of the electron spin T2 time.

Time-resolved photoluminescence experiments on high quality bulk GaN doped with Gd are presented. It was found that the decay time of Gd-related transitions observed for 4.2 K around 1.78 eV is of about 3 ms. Such a long decay time strongly supports the identification of this emission band as due to transitions between Gd 3+ (4f 7 ) levels. The decay time measured for Gd--related transitions observed in the UV spectral range, close to the GaN band-gap, was found to be much faster than 1 µs. This suggests that these emission lines could hardly be correlated with internal transitions within Gd 3+ (4f 7 ). Possible origin of the Gd-related UV luminescence is discussed.

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The magnetic properties of Ni(II) and Cu(II) complexes were measured. In the case of Ni(II) samples strong enhancement of the magnetic susceptibility below 23 K was observed. The model of structural transition was proposed to explain this behavior.