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Employing two different growth methods: standard molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) and low-temperature atomic layer epitaxy (ALE) with subsequent annealing, we have obtained high-quality quantum dot structures consisting of CdSe embedded in ZnSe. Single dot emission lines are observed in micro-luminescence. The samples have been investigated by further optical methods including time-resolved photoluminescence under resonant excitation at 4.2 K. Distinct properties of systems with three-dimensional confinement are observed such as the suppression of the interaction between isolated quantum dots (QDs). In standard quantum wells tunneling/hopping processes generally lead to a pronounced red shift of the luminescence over time due to a lateral localization of excitons in potential fluctuations. A much less pronounced red shift is observed for the QDs reflecting only the different lifetimes of single dots and higher excited states. The red shift completely vanishes under resonant excitation that selectively excites only a few QDs of the ensemble in the layer. Typical behaviour is also observed from the halfwidth of the quantum dot emission.

The exciton dynamics in Ga1 − xInxAs/GaAs self-organized quantum dots grown on GaAs (111)B substrates are studied by the time-resolved photoluminescence (PL). We have found the intra-dot exciton relaxation by the reduction of the linewidth and peak energy and also by the energy-dependent PL rise time in the transient PL spectra. Compared with the energy relaxation in the reference quantum wells, we have confirmed that the exciton relaxation in three-dimensionally confined quantum dots is slower than in the quantum wells.

Excitonic lifetimes in Cd1 − xMnUe2Te, Cd1 − xMgxTe epilayers and CdTe/Cd1 − xMnxTe, Cd1 − xMnxTe/Cd1 − vMgyTe single quantum wells with different well widths and Mn, Mg compositions are investigated. The excitonic lifetimes are found to reduce drastically by applying external magnetic fields to samples with giant Zeeman splittings. The observed phenomenon is interpreted in terms of the PL decay time contribution from the long-life dark excitons which can convert to excitons for recombinations by a spin-flip process. We attribute the lifetime reduction to the depletion of dark excitons due to their crossing over the exciton energies for dipole allowed transitions in magnetic fields.