Phonon laser and indirect exciton dispersion engineering

Engineering of dispersion of indirect excitons by normal electric and in-plane magnetic fields is proposed to be used for controlling the state of many-exciton system (e.g., coherent state) and its photoluminescence and for producing an inverse population in the excitonic system. The possibility of phonon laser creation on the basis of the latter effect is discussed. Phonon number distribution appears to be a fingerprint of that in exciton system. Numerical estimations for the proposed scheme are made for GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells.     

Tunable enhanced transmission of terahertz radiation through an array of subwavelength holes perforated on a semiconductor film by applying external static magnetic fields

We numerically investigated the tunability of resonance terahertz frequencies of enhanced transmission through a two-dimensional array of holes perforated on a semiconductor film by external static magnetic fields using FDTD methods. We found that the in-plane surface-plasmon polaritons-induced transmission peaks shifted appreciably to longer wavelengths when a moderate magnetic field is applied parallel to the patterned semiconductor film and perpendicular to the electric fields of the incident electromagnetic waves. In particular, there is another transmission peak on which the tuning effect is neglectable, indicating that different mechanism accounts for it.     

Ionization of an exciton moving perpendicular to a magnetic field in the GaAs/AlxGa1−x As superlattice

The magnetic field effect on the spectrum of excitons associated with various minibands in superlattices was studied by resonance Raman spectroscopy. It was found that the intensity of Raman scattering by acoustic phonons with the participation of the ground state of an exciton associated with the second miniband is sharply reduced even in weak magnetic fields if its velocity vector is orthogonal to the external magnetic field. This phenomenon was explained by the ionization of the exciton in the electric filed arising in the system of coordinate associated with the exciton moving perpendicular to the external magnetic field.     

Effects of electric field and magnetic induction on spin injection into organic semiconductors

Spin-polarized injection and transport into ferromagnetic/organic semiconductor structure are studied theoretically in the presence of the external electric field and magnetic induction. Based on the spin-drift-diffusion theory and Ohm's law, we obtain the charge current polarization, which takes into account the special carriers of organic semiconductors. From the calculation, it is found that the current spin polarization is enhanced by several orders of magnitude by tuning the magnetic induction and electric fields. To get an apparent current spin polarization, the effects of spin-depended interfacial resistances and the special carriers in the organic semiconductor, which are polarons and bipolarons, are also discussed.     

Exciton spectra of semiconductor superlattices in a parallel magnetic field

Low-temperature photoluminescence and photoluminescence excitation spectra of GaAs/AlGaAs semiconductor superlattices having different potential barrier widths (b=20, 30, 50, and 200 Å), i.e., degrees of tunnel coupling between quantum wells, are studied in magnetic fields up to 5 T oriented parallel and perpendicular to the layers of the structure. The changes in the qualitative character of the photoluminescence excitation spectra observed in a parallel magnetic field with increasing tunnel transparency of the barrier correspond to a transition from a quasi-two-dimensional to a quasi-three-dimensional electronic spectrum as a miniband develops in the superlattice. In the photoluminescence excitation spectra of the superlattice with b=50 Å, as the parallel magnetic field is increased, a new line appears in the violet wing of the spatially indirect exciton excitation line, which is absent in a perpendicular field. A similar line was also observed to arise in the photoluminescence spectra. It is shown that the indirect exciton luminescence line can be suppressed by both parallel and perpendicular magnetic fields.     

An exciton in a quantum well in the presence of crossed electric and magnetic fields

An analytical approach to the problem of the Wannier–Mott exciton in a semiconductor quantum well (QW) in the presence of external magnetic and electric fields is developed. The magnetic field is taken to lie in the heteroplanes while the electric field is directed perpendicular to the heteroplanes. Explicit dependencies of the energy levels and wave-functions of the exciton on the magnitudes of the fields for a wide range of the width of the QW are obtained. For the narrow QW, the results are valid for arbitrary electron and hole effective masses. In the case of intermediate and wide QWs, the adiabatic approximation implying the extreme difference of the electron and hole masses is used. In the intermediate QW, the states of the relative motion are the standard Coulomb states affected by the external fields while the states of the centre of mass are the size-quantized states in the QW. We focus particularly on the delocalized states caused by the external electric field and the motion of the excitons centre of mass in the magnetic field. These states are localized far away from the Coulomb centre. A strong influence of the boundaries of the wide QW on the delocalized exciton states is found to occur. Estimates of the expected values are made using typical parameters associated with GaAs QW.     

Resonant photocurrent-spectroscopy of individual CdSe quantum dots

Here we report on investigations on CdSe quantum dots incorporated in ZnSe based Schottky photodiodes with near-field shadow masks. Photoluminescence and photocurrent of individual quantum dots were studied as a function of the applied bias voltage. The exciton energy of the quantum dot ground state transition was shifted to the excitation energy by using the Stark effect tuning via an external bias voltage. Under the condition of resonance with the laser excitation energy we observed a resonant photocurrent signal due to the tunnelling of carriers out of the quantum dots at electric fields above 500 kV/cm.     

Combined effects of magnetic and electric fields on the interband optical transitions in InAs/InP quantum wire

Combined effects of magnetic and electric fields on the confined exciton in an InAs_1−xP_x/InP (x=0.2) quantum well wire are investigated taking into account the geometrical confinement effect. Variational formulism, within the frame work of effective mass approximation, is applied to obtain the exciton binding energy. The second order harmonic generation and the optical gain are carried out using compact density method. The strain effects are included with the confinement potential in the Hamiltonian. The energy difference of the ground and the first excited state is found in the presence of magnetic and electric fields taking into the consideration of spatial confinement effect. The result shows that the optical properties are more influenced taking into account the effects of geometrical confinement, magnetic field and electric field. It is shown that the telecommunication wavelength can be achieved with the suitable doping barrier material with the wire material and the external perturbations.     

Combined exciton–electron excitation in quantum wells with a two-dimensional electron gas of low density

A combined exciton–cyclotron resonance is found in the photoluminescence excitation and reflectivity spectra of semiconductor quantum wells with an electron gas of low density. In external magnetic fields an incident photon creates an exciton in the ground state and simultaneously excites an electron between Landau levels. A theoretical model is developed and suggests the dominating contribution of the exchange exciton–electron interaction.     

Current-induced spin accumulation in lateral superlattices with Rashba and Dresselhaus spin–orbit interaction

The current-induced spin accumulation is calculated for a 1D lateral semiconductor superlattice with spin–orbit interaction of the Rashba and Dresselhaus type. Due to its particular symmetry, the Rashba interaction alone only leads to an in-plane component of the magnetization transverse to the applied electric field. When in addition a Dresselhaus contribution is present, this symmetry is lifted, and all components of the magnetization are induced by the electric field. Based on the density-matrix approach, the induced spin polarization is determined as a function of external in-plane electric and magnetic fields.     

Anomalous phonon wind effect on the lateral exciton migration in ultrathin quantum well CdTe/ZnTe

The effect of nonequilibrium acoustic phonon flux on the photoluminescence of an ultrathin quantum well CdTe/ZnTe upon its quasi-resonant excitation by a He-Ne laser was studied. It is found that the phonon flux generated by an external source affects the quantum well luminescence bandshape even at small lasing power and large (up to 1 cm) distance between the phonon generation zone and the quasi-resonant luminescence excitation zone. It is assumed that the phonon flux stimulates exciton in-plane (lateral) migration in the quantum well through the tunneling between the local potential minima accompanied by induced phonon emission.     

Magnetic-field effects on exciton–polaron in a CdSe quantum disk

We study theoretically the interaction between excitons and longitudinal optical (LO) phonons in a cylindrical disk-like semiconductor quantum dot under an applied magnetic field. Due to the intensity of the interaction in the strong coupling regime, a composite quasi-particle called exciton–polaron is formed. We focus on the effect of the disk size and an external magnetic field on the exciton–phonon interaction energy and the exciton–polaron modes. The numerical computation for a CdSe quantum disk have shown that the exciton–phonon interaction energy is very significant and is even dominant when the disk height is small, which leads to a large Rabi splitting between the exciton–polaron modes. We investigate also the effect of the temperature on the integrated photoluminescence (PL) intensity, and show that at relatively high temperature the LO phonons have a noticeable effect on it. This physical parameter also shows a great dependence on quantum disk size and on magnetic field.     

Magnetic field effect on state energies and transition frequency of a strong-coupling polaron in an anisotropic quantum dot

By employing a variational method of the Pekar-type, which has different variational parameters in the x–y plane and the z-direction, we study the ground and the first excited state energies and transition frequency between the ground and the first excited states of a strong-coupling polaron in an anisotropic quantum dot (AQD) under an applied magnetic field along the z-direction. The effects of the magnetic field and the electron–phonon coupling strength are taken into account. It is found that the ground and the first excited state energies and the transition frequency are increasing functions of the external applied magnetic field. The ground state and the first excited state energies are decreasing functions, whereas transition frequency is an increasing function of the electron–phonon coupling strength. We find two ways of tuning the state energies and the transition frequency: by adjusting (1) the magnetic field and (2) the electron–phonon coupling strength.     

Charged magnetoexcitons in two-dimensions: magnetic translations and families of dark states

We show that optical transitions of charged excitons in semiconductor heterostructures are governed in magnetic fields by a novel exact selection rule, a manifestation of magnetic translations. It is shown that the spin-triplet ground state of the quasi-two-dimensional charged exciton X--a bound state of two electrons and one hole-is optically inactive in photoluminescence at finite magnetic fields. Internal bound-to-bound X- triplet transition has a specific spectral position, below the electron cyclotron resonance, and is strictly prohibited in a translationally invariant system. These results allow one to discriminate between free and disorder-affected charged excitons.     

The effects of electric and magnetic fields on the current spin polarization and magnetoresistance in a ferromagnetic/organic semiconductor/ferromagnetic（FM/OSC/FM） system

From experimental results of spin polarized injection and transport in organic semiconductors(OSCs),we theoretically study the current spin polarization and magnetoresistance under an electric and a magnetic field in a ferromagnetic/organic semiconductor/ferromagnetic(FM/OSC/FM) sandwich structure according to the spin drift-diffusion theory and Ohm’s law.From the calculations,it is found that the interfacial current spin polarization is enhanced by several orders of magnitude through tuning the magnetic and electric fields by taking into account the specific characteristics of OSC.Furthermore,the effects of the electric and magnetic fields on the magnetoresistance are also discussed in the sandwich structure.     

Direct observation of exciton relaxation in AgBr by time-resolved secondary emission

The dynamical behaviour of a hot exciton system is studied by measuring the time evolution of secondary emission after picosecond laser excitation in resonance with the indirect exciton. From analyzing the experimental data absolute transition rates are determined for exciton trapping at impurities or defects and scattering by LA(Λ) and TA(X) phonons. The deformation potentials for long wavelength acoustic and intervalley phonon scattering derived are 0.84 eV and 4.2 eV, respectively.     

Exciton condensation in coupled quantum wells

Bound electron-hole pairs—excitons—are Bose particles with small mass. Exciton Bose-Einstein condensation is expected to occur at a few degrees Kelvin—a temperature many orders of magnitude higher than for atoms. Experimentally, an exciton temperature well below 1 K is achieved in coupled quantum well (CQW) semiconductor nanostructures. In this contribution, we review briefly experiments that signal exciton condensation in CQWs: a strong enhancement of the indirect exciton mobility consistent with the onset of exciton superfluidity, a strong enhancement of the radiative decay rate of the indirect excitons consistent with exciton condensate superradiance, strong fluctuations of the indirect exciton emission consistent with critical fluctuations near the phase transition, and a strong enhancement of the exciton scattering rate with increasing concentration of the indirect excitons revealing bosonic stimulation of exciton scattering. Novel experiments with exciton condensation in potential traps, pattern formation in exciton system and macroscopically ordered exciton state will also be reviewed briefly.     

Polaritons in semiconductor/insulator superlattices with nonlocal excitonic response

We report a polariton mode structure calculations based on nonlocal model for semiconductor/insulator superlattices. The reflection spectra and the spatial distributions of intrinsic electric fields near polariton resonance are presented. We show that near the polariton resonance the electric component of polariton mode changes drastically and depends strongly upon the quantum confined exciton wavefunctions.     

Nonlinear magnetooptical absorption in a semiconductor

The influence of an external magnetic field on the optical characteristics of the exciton spectra of a semiconductor is studied. It is shown that the diamagnetic shift of the exciton level essentially changes the dynamics of the exciton absorption. The combination of the excitonic and magnetic properties of a crystal in the range of excitonic frequencies gives new opportunities to control the bistable behavior of the crystal. It is revealed that the magnetooptical response of the semiconductor to the laser field gives rise to bistable loops with respect to both the intensity of the incident light and the magnitude of the magnetic field.     

Exciton Spectroscopy of Semiconductors by the Method of Optical Harmonics Generation (Review)

Nonlinear optical phenomena are widely used for the study of semiconductor materials. The paper presents an overview of experimental and theoretical studies of excitons by the method of optical second and third harmonics generation in various bulk semiconductors (GaAs, CdTe, ZnSe, ZnO, Cu₂O, (Cd,Mn)Te, EuTe, EuSe), and low-dimensional heterostructures ZnSe/BeTe. Particular attention is paid to the role of external electric and magnetic fields that modify the exciton states and induce new mechanisms of optical harmonics generation. Microscopic mechanisms of harmonics generation based on the Stark effect, the spin and orbital Zeeman effects, and on the magneto-Stark effect specific for excitons moving in an external magnetic field are considered. This approach makes it possible to study the properties of excitons and to obtain new information on their energy and spin structure that is not available when the excitons are investigated by linear optical spectroscopy. As a result of these studies, a large amount of information was obtained, which allows us to conclude on the establishing of a new field of research—exciton spectroscopy by the method of optical harmonics generation.