Surface-fracture-related photoluminescence of CdMnTe crystals

Abstract

Enhanced photoluminescence from sub-wavelength crystallites attached to the fractured surface of cleaved host crystals, and the transfer of emitted light to the dark side of macroscopically thick absorbing samples of Cd 1-x Mn x Te with x = 0.2 is reported. The conventional model based on Kirchhoff 's law of radiation is found to fail to describe the experimental photoluminescence line and its red shift relative to the optical absorption, and a more adequate novel theoretical model implying population inversion is proposed.