Influence of acoustic phonons on dephasing of free excitons in quantum wells

A theory of the dephasing rate of quasi-2D free excitons due to acoustic phonon interaction at low exciton densities is presented. Both deformation potential and piezoelectric couplings are considered for the exciton–phonon interaction in quantum wells. Using the derived interaction Hamiltonian obtained recently by us, exciton linewidth and dephasing rate are calculated as a function of the exciton density, exciton temperature, exciton momentum and lattice temperature.     

Phase transitions of indirect excitons in coupled quantum wells: The role of disorder

The theory of what happens to a superfluid in a random field, known as the “dirty boson” problem, directly relates to a real experimental system presently under study by several groups, namely excitons in coupled semiconductor quantum wells. We consider the case of bosons in two dimensions in a random field, when the random field can be large compared to the repulsive exciton–exciton interaction energy, but is small compared to the exciton binding energy. The interaction between excitons is taken into account in the ladder approximation. The coherent potential approximation (CPA) allows us to derive the exciton Green's function for a wide range of the random field strength, and in the weak-scattering limit CPA results in the second-order Born approximation. For quasi-two-dimensional excitonic systems, the density of the superfluid component and the Kosterlitz–Thouless temperature of the superfluid phase transition are obtained, and are found to decrease as the random field increases.     

Quantum Monte Carlo simulation of exciton–exciton scattering in a GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well

We present a computer simulation of exciton–exciton scattering in a quantum well. Specifically, we use quantum Monte Carlo techniques to study the bound and continuum states of two excitons in a 10 nm wide GaAs/Al_0.3Ga_0.7As quantum well. From these bound and continuum states we extract the momentum-dependent phase shifts for s-wave scattering. A surprising finding of this work is that a commonly studied effective-mass model for excitons in a 10 nm quantum well actually supports two bound biexciton states. The second, weakly bound state may dramatically enhance exciton–exciton interactions. We also fit our results to a hard-disk model and indicate directions for future work.     

Renormalization Effects in the Spectrum of a Coherently Driven Exciton–Biexciton System

Starting from the total Hamiltonian of an excited exciton–biexciton system, nonresonant renormalizations in the electronic spectrum of a coherently driven direct semiconductor are considered. Stringent group-theoretical inclusion of the particle spin in the Hamiltonian allows one to account for the dependence of different renormalization effects on polarizations of the incident laser fields. On the example of circularly polarized driving and probing pulses it is shown that the kind of observed renormalization is defined by the pump-and-probe polarization geometry. Thus, the exciton optical Stark effect must appear in the case of co-circular pump-and-probe, whereas a mixing of the polariton and biexciton spectra is possible only in the case of counter-circular pump-and-probe. The polariton--biexciton dispersion renormalization may manifest itself as synchronous splittings of the exciton--polariton and biexciton spectra under resonant pumping at a frequency of the polariton--biexciton transition, or in their shifts in opposite directions under near-resonant pumping. The mechanisms of both kinds of renormalization effects are analyzed, and the dependence of their characteristics on the pump parameters and microscopic parameters of the exciton–biexciton–photon system is established. An evaluation of the characteristics shows that the effect of polariton–biexciton dispersion renormalization dominates in the spectra of semiconductors with stable biexciton formation. Results of the theoretical study provide an adequate explanation of available experimental data.     

Stimulated light backscattering from exciton Bose condensate

A new effect—light backscattering from exciton Bose-condensate—is considered. This effect is connected with the photoinduced coherent recombination of two excitons in the condensate with the production of two photons with opposite momenta. The effect of two-exciton coherent recombination leads also to the appearance of the second-order coherence in exciton luminescence connected with squeezing between photon states with opposite momenta. The estimations given for Cu₂O and GaAs excitons show that the effect of stimulated light backscattering can be detected experimentally. Moreover, in the system of 2D excitons in coupled quantum wells, the effect of stimulated anomalous light transmission must also take place. Anologous effects can also take place in systems of Bose-condensed atoms in excited (but metastable) states.     

Time-resolved four-wave-mixing of exciton transitions in GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells: Novel effects in the lineshape

We investigate coherent exciton transitions in GaAs/Al _x Ga_1–x As quantum wells using subpicosecond four-wave-mixing spectroscopy. In a first part, we show that the four-wave-mixing lineshape deviates considerably from earlier predictions when the detailed structure of the excitons is taken into account, and we study the density dependence and excitation energy dependence in detail. In a second part, we discuss the observation of quantum beats due to the coherent superposition of different excitonic transitions and show how the analysis of the lineshape can yield information about relaxation processes.Dedicated to H.-J. Queisser on the occasion of his 60th birthday     

Signatures of stimulated bosonic exciton-scattering in semiconductor luminescence

We observe signatures of stimulated bosonic scattering of excitons, a precursor of Bose-Einstein-Condensation (BEC), in the photoluminescence of semiconductor quantum wells. The optical decay of a spinless molecule of two excitons (biexciton) into an exciton and a photon with opposite angular momenta is subject to bosonic enhancement in the presence of other excitons. In a gas of biexcitons and spin polarized excitons the bosonic enhancement breaks the symmetry of two equivalent biexciton decay channels leading to circularly polarized luminescence of the biexciton with the sign opposite to the circularly polarized exciton luminescence. Comparison of experiment and many body theory clearly indicates the existence of stimulated exciton-scattering, but excludes the presence of a fully condensed BEC-like state.     

Electromagnetically induced transparency in bulk and microcavity semiconductors

We discuss our recent results on electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) effects based on intrinsic free exciton and biexciton states in semiconductors. The Λ configuration obtained from the 1S and 2P yellow exciton levels of Cu₂O leads to a well-developed EIT regime, akin to the atomic case. The coherent driving of the exciton–biexciton transition in CuCl induces a tunable transparency window within the polaritonic stop-band, due to the presence of a third polariton branch in the dressed system. In a microcavity configuration, this gives rise to three reflectivity dips in the strong coupling regime.     

Electronic structure and absorption spectrum of biexciton obtained by using exciton basis

We approach the biexciton Schrödinger equation not through the free-carrier basis as usually done, but through the free-exciton basis, exciton–exciton interactions being treated according to the recently developed composite boson many-body formalism which allows an exact handling of carrier exchange between excitons, as induced by the Pauli exclusion principle. We numerically solve the resulting biexciton Schrödinger equation with the exciton levels restricted to the ground state and we derive the biexciton ground state as well as the bound and unbound excited states as a function of hole-to-electron mass ratio. The biexciton ground-state energy we find, agrees reasonably well with variational results. Next, we use the obtained biexciton wave functions to calculate optical absorption in the presence of a dilute exciton gas in quantum well. We find an asymmetric peak with a characteristic low-energy tail, identified with the biexciton ground state, and a set of Lorentzian-like peaks associated with biexciton unbound states, i.e., exciton–exciton scattering states. Last, we propose a pump–probe experiment to probe the momentum distribution of the exciton condensate.     

Experimental demonstration of coherent coupling of two quantum dots

During the recent years semiconductor nanostructures have attracted considerable interest with respect to potential applications in quantum information processing. In particular, quantum dot molecules have been suggested to provide the building block of a quantum computer: forming quantum gates due to coherent coupling of two dots. The characteristic dependence of the splitting of ‘bonding’ and ‘anti-bonding’ states suggests coherent coupling of two InAs/GaAs quantum dots. Anti-crossings in the fine structure of excitons due to mixing of optically bright and dark states have been observed in Faraday configuration. In Voigt configuration the diamagnetic shift of the quantum dot molecule is enhanced compared to a single quantum dot. These findings altogether demonstrate the coherent coupling of exciton states in quantum dot molecules.     

Optical Bloch equations with dual photon excitation explain the polarization dependence of four wave mixing quantum beats

We explain the polarization dependence of four wave mixing (FWM) quantum beats for semiconductors as essentially due to the spin phase correlations of photo-excited electrons, rather than to Coulomb interaction between the electrons. A theoretical analysis is given within the framework of optical Bloch equations for the light–semiconductor interactions and the Luttinger–Kohn model for the band structure. Residual Coulomb interactions between charge carriers are ignored. The results suggest that the polarization dependence of FWM quantum beats is a purely coherent effect of dual photon excitations, rather than, e.g., exciton–exciton Coulomb interaction. We show that the coherence transfer between the excited states is responsible for the FWM in a configuration with orthogonally polarized pump and probe.     

Hybrid excitons in organic–inorganic semiconducting quantum wells in a microcavity

We investigate theoretically the optical properties of composite organic–inorganic semiconductor quantum wells. These properties are dominated by hybrid Frenkel (or charge-transfer) and Wannier–Mott excitonic states. An important effect is the possibility of using the Stark shift to tune the resonance between Frenkel and Wannier–Mott excitons. This fact is very important from a practical point of view because it may be difficult to grow such a structure exactly at resonance. We also discussed the coupling of Frenkel or charge transfer and Wannier–Mott exciton through a microcavity photon. We evaluate the hybrid exciton-polariton Rabi splitting. In the strong coupling regime the Rabi splitting depends essentially on the oscillator strength of the Frenkel or charge-transfer exciton.     

A New Bosonization Method for Photoexcited Electronic States and Its Application to Nonlinear Optical Responses

We derive a bosonized Hamiltonian for a semiconductor quantum well with a light field by a new bosonization method taking exactly into account the composite-particle effects of excitons. Then we apply the bosonized Hamiltonian to the four-wave-mixing (FWM) processes. The obtained Hamiltonian describes two-boson states corresponding to bound and unbound two-exciton states and guarantees exclusion of unphysical states, which cannot exist in the fermionic space due to the Pauli exclusion principle. Calculated results of the FWM signals are in good agreement with the experimental ones, and therefore, the bosonized Hamiltonian turns out to be able to describe two-exciton correlations effectively.     

Photon Echo from Localized Excitons in Semiconductor Nanostructures

An overview on photon echo spectroscopy under resonant excitation of the exciton complexes in semiconductor nanostructures is presented. The use of four-wave-mixing technique with the pulsed excitation and heterodyne detection allowed us to measure the coherent response of the system with the picosecond time resolution. It is shown that, for resonant selective pulsed excitation of the localized exciton complexes, the coherent signal is represented by the photon echoes due to the inhomogeneous broadening of the optical transitions. In case of resonant excitation of the trions or donor-bound excitons, the Zeeman splitting of the resident electron ground state levels under the applied transverse magnetic field results in quantum beats of photon echo amplitude at the Larmor precession frequency. Application of magnetic field makes it possible to transfer coherently the optical excitation into the spin ensemble of the resident electrons and to observe a long-lived photon echo signal. The described technique can be used as a high-resolution spectroscopy of the energy splittings in the ground state of the system. Next, we consider the Rabi oscillations and their damping under excitation with intensive optical pulses for the excitons complexes with a different degree of localization. It is shown that damping of the echo signal with increase of the excitation pulse intensity is strongly manifested for excitons, while on trions and donor-bound excitons this effect is substantially weaker.     

激子自旋弛豫对简并量子点发射光子对纠缠度的影响

利用粒子数运动方程和量子回归理论，计算了单个半导体量子点双激子体系脉冲激发下粒子在各能级间辐射跃迁的二阶交叉相关函数以及系统发射光子对的偏振密度矩阵.分析了激子态能级简并量子点体系发射光子对偏振纠缠特性，讨论了纠缠度随激子态间自旋弛豫的变化关系.研究表明，激子自旋弛豫会破坏该系统发射光子对的纠缠度. 关键词： 纠缠光子对 半导体量子点 二阶相关函数     

Theory of the excitonic Mott transition in quasi-two-dimensional systems

The excitonic Mott transition in single and double quantum wells is studied using the Green’s function technique. An abrupt jump in the value of the ionization degree, which happens with an increase of the carrier density or temperature, is found in a certain density–temperature region. The opposite effect–the collapse of the electron–hole plasma into an insulating exciton system–is predicted to occur at lower densities. The critical density of the Mott transition for spatially indirect excitons may be much smaller than that for direct excitons.     

Exciton and multi-exciton structures in GaAs quantum dots studied by single-photon correlation spectroscopy

Single-photon emitters and detectors are key devices for realizing secure communications by single-photon-based cryptography and single-photon-based quantum computing. For the establishment of these technologies, we need to understand the electronic structures of single and multiple excitons. Therefore, we have studied their emissions via the micro-photoluminescence (μ-PL) spectra of strain-free GaAs/AlGaAs single quantum dots, using excitation power dependence, time-resolved, and single-photon correlation measurements. Under pulsed excitation, we observed clear photon antibunching and bunching by auto- and cross-correlation measurements. From these results, we found that the emission peaks observed in the μ-PL spectra originated from exciton, charged exciton, and biexciton states.     

Coherent Pump-Probe Response of Quantum Wells: Polarization Dependence

We consider the coherent pump–probe response from quantum wells using the exciton–boson formalism approach. We obtain the mean-field contribution and that of the biexciton as well as of a molecular scattering state in analytic form and show that each of these contributions may completely disappear in one or another polarization configuration of the pump and probe pulses, which makes the response strongly dependent on polarization. We apply the derived formulas for calculating the differential absorption spectrum of quantum-well samples under excitation conditions supporting the slow exciton–exciton scattering. The obtained results are in good qualitative agreement with available experimental observations.