We study experimentally and theoretically polarization-dependent luminescence from an ensemble of quantum-dot-like nanostructures with a very large in-plane shape anisotropy (quantum dashes). We show that the measured degree of linear polarization of the emitted light increases with the excitation power and changes with temperature in a non-trivial way, depending on the excitation conditions. Using an approximate model based on the k.p theory, we are able to relate this degree of polarization to the amount of light hole admixture in the exciton states which, in turn, depends on the symmetry of the envelope wave function. Agreement between the measured properties and theory is reached under assumption that the ground exciton state in a quantum dash is trapped in a confinement fluctuation within the structure and thus localized in a much smaller volume of much lower asymmetry than the entire nanostructure.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures; considerably extended, additional discussion and new figures include

Photoreflectance (PR) measurements have been performed on InAs∕In0.53Ga0.23Al0.24As quantum dashes (QDashes) molecular-beam epitaxy grown on InP substrate. The PR features related to all relevant parts of the structure have been detected, including the ground and excited state optical transitions in QDashes. QDash ground state transition shifts from 1.5 to almost 2μm with the increase in the thickness of InAs layer, corresponding to the increase in the average size of the dashes. Excited state transitions have been clearly observed at the energy of about 150meV above the ground state transition energy.

Here comes a report on the optical properties of InP based InAs columnar quantum dashes, which are proposed as an alternative for columnar quantum dots in semiconductor optical amplifiers construction since they offer convenient spectral tuning over 1.55μm together with a very broad and high gain. Electronic structure details are investigated by photoreflectance and photoluminescence and analyzed by comparison with effective mass calculations. Columnar quantum dash emission from the cleaved edge is examined by polarization resolved photoluminescence showing a transition of the dominant polarization from transverse electric to transverse magnetic with an increase in the quantum dash vertical dimension.