Excitons and biexcitons as mesoscopic probes of disorder in semiconductor heterostructures

Summary form only given. Optical and electronic properties of semiconductor heterostructures are strongly influenced by inherent disorder effects. The disorder consists of alloy disorder in ternary or quaternary compound semiconductors and interface roughness in semiconductor quantum wells. The spatial scales of disorder depend on the growth process. The disorder scale has up to now been extremely difficult to determine by macroscopic optical experiments. Here, we use excitons and biexcitons as mesoscopic probes in coherent excitation spectroscopy (CES) to reveal the spatial scale of disorder.