Effect of vertical electric fields on exciton fine structure of GaAs natural quantum dots

The effect of vertical electric fields on the neutral exciton of GaAs “natural” quantum dots is investigated. A Stark effect with a quadratic field dependence up to 2 meV was observed and reveals a displacement of the excitonic wave function. The luminescencequenching limits the applied electric field range. No significative change on the fine structure splitting of the neutral exciton has been observed, suggesting that the lateral potential induced by the vertical electric field is too weak to modify the in-plane anisotropy of the exciton wave function.