ABSTRACTSample temperature dependence and excitation power dependence of the photoluminescence intensity were investigated with respect to growth temperature for SiGe single quantum wells grown pseudomorphically to (100)-oriented Si by molecular beam epitaxy. The determined excitation power exponents and thermal activation energies show unambiguously that defect incorporation is effectively reduced at higher growth temperatures. However, at higher growth temperatures the SiGe-related spectral distribution is found to be shifted to higher photon energy which is attributed to intermixing of Ge and Si at the heterointerfaces, governed by diffusion as well as Ge surface segregation during growth. The diffusion process is studied separately by photoluminescence measurements upon thermal annealing at different temperatures and a diffusion model is presented where the diffusion process is assumed to be composed of two different mechanisms, interdiffusion, i.e. lattice-site-exchange diffusion, and point-defectinduced diffusion. The determined activation energies for the two diffusion mechanisms are in good agreement with previous results which confirm that the model gives a realistic picture of the diffusion process.