Observation of charged excitons in V-groove quantum wires

We report on the observation of negatively and positively charged excitons in the photoluminescence spectra of V-groove quantum wires. The charged exciton binding energy increases with the strength of the quantum confinement. We demonstrate that the charged excitons are localized by the fluctuations of the confinement potential and estimate a minimal value of the localization length. (C) 2004 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA. Weinheim.