Charged magneto-exciton states in semiconductor quantum dots

By embedding a layer of self-assembled quantum dots into a field-effect structure, we are able to control the exciton charge in a single dot. We present the results of photoluminescence experiments as a function of both charge and magnetic field. The results demonstrate a hierarchy of energy scales determined by quantization, the direct Coulomb interaction, the electron–electron exchange interaction, and the electron–hole exchange interaction. For excitons up to the triply charged exciton, the behavior can be understood from a model assuming discrete levels within the quantum dot. For the triply charged exciton, this is no longer the case. In a magnetic field, we discover a coherent interaction with the continuum states, the Landau levels associated with the wetting layer.     

Splitting and storing excitons in strained coupled self-assembled quantum dots

We present a novel self-assembled quantum dot structure designed to spatially separate and store photo-generated electrons and holes in pairs of strain coupled quantum dots. The spatial separation of electron–hole pairs into quantum dots and strain-induced quantum dots has been investigated and verified by photoluminescence experiments. Results from time-resolved PL demonstrates that at low temperatures (3 K) the electron–hole pair can be stored for several seconds.     

Mean-field dynamics of a quantum dot-microcavity system

Mean-field evolution equations for the exciton and photon populations and polarizations (Bloch–Lamb equations) are written and numerically solved in order to describe the dynamics of electronic states in a quantum dot coupled to the photon field of a microcavity. The equations account for phase space filling effects and Coulomb interactions among carriers, and include also (in a phenomenological way) incoherent pumping of the quantum dot, photon losses through the microcavity mirrors, and electron–hole population decay due to spontaneous emission of the dot. When the dot may support more than one electron–hole pair, asymptotic oscillatory states, with periods between 0.5 and 1.5 ps, are found almost for any values of the system parameters.     

Magnetoexcitons in unbalanced double layers

We study theoretically correlations of electrons and holes in unbalanced double-layer electronic systems in strong magnetic fields. Calculations are made using the exact diagonalization and the variational wave function. The ground state of an electron–hole pair in quantized cyclotron orbits possesses an in-plane electric dipole moment, when an electron and a hole are in different Landau orbits with different radii. The resulting attractive interactions between pairs creates the possibility of novel states.     

Contact correlations in one-dimensional systems of interacting fermions and the photoluminescence from quantum wires

We calculate the dependence of the carriers lifetime with the wire width in quantum wires by considering a strictly one-dimensional system of interacting electrons and holes. Confinement effects are taken into account through a width-dependent pair-potential proposed by Hu and Das Sarma. The carriers lifetime is then obtained from the inverse of the contact electron–hole correlations. We explain the change in the sign of the derivative at a critical temperature, as it is observed in photoluminescence experiments from In Ga As/InP quantum wires, by taking into account the carriers density dependence with temperature and assuming that the contact correlations are either just a two-body quantity or a many-body one for the lower and higher densities, respectively. In the former case, the system is viewed as an ionized excitonic gas, the pair correlation being the square of the two-body wave function for unbound states. In the latter, we have a metallic electron–hole system and we calculate the contact pair correlation in the many-body ladder approximation.     

Relaxation time for a charge carrier due to its scattering from other charge carriers in superlattices

A calculation of relaxation time for (i) electron–electron scattering in a modulation-doped superlattice of type-I and (ii) electron–electron, hole–hole and electron–hole scattering processes in a compositional superlattice of type-II has been performed, using Fermi's golden rule. As compared to a two-dimensional electron gas system, both intralayer and interlayer interactions, between charge carriers in a superlattice, contribute to relaxation time. It is found that scattering processes at all possible value of momentum transfer contribute to relaxation time, for a given value of temperature and carrier density. We further find interlayer interactions in a superlattice make a significant contribution to relaxation time. Relaxation time is found to decrease on increasing temperature, carrier density and single particle energy, in a superlattice. The computed relaxation time for an electron (hole) in a superlattice enhances on increasing the width of layer consisting of electrons (holes). The electron–hole (hole–electron) scattering process in a type-II superlattice yields maximum contribution to the relaxation time when a hole layer lies exactly in between two consecutive electron layers.     

Photomagnetic effect in bilayer two-dimensional electron–hole systems

In tilted magnetic fields a bilayer electron–hole system is found to generate a photocurrent under terahertz radiation as the system is tuned to electron cyclotron resonance conditions. The photoinduced current amplitude oscillates with the magnetic field in correlation with Shubnikov–de Haas oscillations for electrons. The phenomenon is accounted for by a photomagnetic effect in electron–hole systems in the quantum Hall regime and has potentialities for terahertz detection and spectroscopy.     

Pseudospin solitons in the coherent stripe phase of a bilayer quantum Hall system

In the Hartree–Fock approximation and at total filling factor ν=4N+1, the ground state of the two-dimensional electron gas in a double quantum well system in a quantizing magnetic field is, in some range of interlayer distances, a coherent striped phase. This stripe phase has one-dimensional coherent channels that support charged excitations in the form of pseudospin solitons. In this work, we compute the transport gap of the coherent striped phase due to the creation of soliton–antisoliton pairs using a supercell microscopic unrestricted Hartree–Fock approach. We study the energy gap as a function of interlayer distance and tunneling amplitude. Our calculations confirm that the soliton–antisoliton excitation energy is lower than the corresponding Hartree–Fock electron–hole pair energy.     

Shake-up processes in intersubband magneto-photoabsorption of a two-dimensional electron gas

I theoretically study shake-up processes in photoabsorption of an interacting low-density two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) in magnetic fields. Such processes, in which an incident photon creates an electron–hole pair and simultaneously excites one electron to one of the higher Landau levels, were observed experimentally [Phys. Rev. Lett. 79 (1997) 3974] and were called combined exciton-cyclotron resonance (ExCR). The recently developed theory of ExCR [Phys. Rev. B 64 (2001) 241101] allows for a consistent treatment of the Coulomb correlations, establishes the exact ExCR selection rules, and predicts the high-field features of ExCR. In this work, I generalize the existing theory of high-field ExCR in the 2DEG to the case when the hole is excited to higher hole Landau levels.     

Origin of the blueshift in the infrared absorbance of intersubband transitions in N/GaN multiple quantum wells

A self-consistent calculation of the subband energy levels of n-doped quantum wells is studied. A comparison is made between theoretical results and experimental data. In order to account for the deviations between them, the ground-state electron–electron exchange interactions, the ground-state direct Coulomb interactions, the depolarization effect, and the exciton-like effect are considered in the simulations. The agreement between theory and experiment is greatly improved when all these aspects are taken into account. The ground-to-excited-state energy difference increases by 8 meV from its self-consistent value if one considers the depolarization effect and the exciton-like effect only. It appears that the electron–electron exchange interactions account for most of the observed residual blueshift for the infrared intersubband absorbance in Al_xGa_1-xN/GaN multiple quantum wells. It seems that electrons on the surface of the k-space Fermi gas make the main contribution to the electron–electron exchange interactions, while for electrons further inside the Fermi gas it is difficult to exchange their positions.     

Exciton-Boson Formalism in the Theory of Laser-Excited Semiconductors and Its Application in Coherent Four-Wave-Mixing Spectroscopy

By the use of a bosonization transformation and group-theoretical arguments, the Hamiltonian of an electron–hole–photon system in a laser-excited direct two-band semiconductor is transcribed into that of an exciton–photon system with the particle spins rigorously taken into consideration. It is shown that the third-order optical nonlinearities in the spectral region below the band edge have their microscopic origin in two-exciton correlations, which are expressed in terms of the effective exciton–exciton and anharmonic exciton–photon interactions. The dependence of the interparticle interactions on the spin states of quasiparticles is behind the polarization dependence of the semiconductor nonlinear optical response. On the example of the system of heavy hole excitons in quantum wells, grown from compounds with the zinc blende type of symmetry, it is demonstrated that the effective exciton–exciton interaction in two-exciton states with nonzero total spin is repulsive, while in zero-spin states it is attractive, which may result in the biexciton formation. The derived Heisenberg equations of motion for the exciton and biexciton operators form the basis for a theoretical study of the coherent four-wave-mixing in GaAs and ZnSe quantum wells. It is readily apparent from the equations that in different polarization configurations the coherent four-wave-mixing is generated by different ingredients of two-exciton Coulomb correlations: in the co-circular configuration, it is the interexciton repulsion, in the cross-linear configuration, the formation of the biexciton and its coupling to excitons, and in the collinear configuration, both of them jointly. The obtained expressions for the time-resolved and frequency-resolved four-wave-mixing signals adequately describe the main characteristics and various details of wave mixing phenomena, including a biexciton signature in the appropriate polarization configurations. Results of the work clarify the microscopic mechanism of the polarization dependence in coherent four-wave-mixing spectroscopy in semiconductor quantum wells.     

Magnetic field studies of the frictional drag between coupled two-dimensional electronic systems – Coulomb versus phonon coupling

The coupling between systems of two spatially separated two-dimensional (2D) electron gases and between systems of a separated 2D electron gas and a 2D hole gas is studied as a function of magnetic field . The small barrier (30 nm) separated coupled electron gases showed a transition from a phonon dominated interaction at to a Coulomb dominated one at quantising fields. For large barriers (190 nm) phonons have been found to be the dominant coupling mechanism both at zero and finite fields. However, for all barriers investigated we could observe novel screening effects manifested in a suppression of the coupling at half-filled Landau levels. For the coupled electron–hole gases we have investigated samples with large barriers ( ) so that the coupling is both in zero and finite fields dominated by phonon mediated processes. The enhanced screening effects could not be observed in those samples possibly due to the less pronounced quantisation of the hole gas.     

Electron-hole pair condensation in a graphene bilayer

The pairing of electrons and holes due to their Coulomb attraction in two parallel, independently gated graphene layers separated by a barrier is considered. At a weak coupling, there exists the BCS-like pair-condensed state. Despite the fact that electrons and holes behave like massless Dirac fermions, the problem of BCS-like electron—hole pairing in the graphene bilayer turns out to be rather similar to that in usual coupled semiconductor quantum wells. The distinctions are due to the Berry phase of electronic wavefunctions and different screening properties. We estimate the values of the gap in a one-particle excitation spectrum for different interlayer distances and carrier concentrations. The influence of the disorder is discussed. At a large enough dielectric susceptibility of the surrounding medium, the weak coupling regime holds at arbitrarily small carrier concentrations. Localized electron—hole pairs are absent in graphene, thus the behavior of the system versus the coupling strength is cardinally different from usual BCS—BEC crossover. The text was submitted by the authors in English.     

Ultra-fast dynamics of electron thermalization,cooling and transport effects in Ru(001)

Time-resolved two-photon photoelectron spectroscopy is used to study the dynamics of non-equilibrium electron and hole distributions at bare and D₂O-covered Ru(001) following optical excitation (55-fs, 800-nm pulses) with variable fluence (0.04–0.6 mJcm^-2). Within the first 0.5 ps we observe an ultra-fast transient of the excited-carrier population and energy density at the surface which is accompanied by pronounced deviations of the electron-energy distribution from a (thermalized) Fermi–Dirac distribution. Comparison of the transient energy density of the photoexcited electrons at the surface with predictions of the two-temperature model provides fair agreement up to 400 fs, but exhibits a systematically lower energy density at later times, where electrons and phonons are equilibrated. We propose that this reduced energy density at the surface originates from ultra-fast energy transport of non-thermal electrons into the bulk in competition to electron–phonon coupling at the surface. This is corroborated by extending the two-temperature model to account for non-thermal, photoexcited electrons, whereby quantitative agreement with experiment can only be achieved if ballistic transport and reduced electron–phonon coupling is incorporated for non-thermal electrons. Implications for surface femtochemistry are discussed. PACS 78.47.+p; 71.38.-k; 73.40.-c     

Highly efficient radiative recombination of electron–hole pairs localized at compound semiconductor quantum dots embedded in Si

We have studied the optical properties of compound semiconductor quantum dots (CSQDs) embedded in Si. Both photoluminescence and electroluminescence spectra were found to be associated with an inhomogeneously broadened band in the near-infrared. A long decay lifetime of luminescence was observed, which is in support of an indirect transition in both k- and real-space. Strong localization of electron–hole pairs was found to occur due to a deep potential well created by the built-in electric dipole at the III–V/Si interface. A Si-based light-emitting diode with GaSb-CSQDs in the active layer showed a high value of quantum efficiency. Light amplification was also observed under pulsed laser excitation.     

Exact non-Born-Oppenheimer wave function for the Hooke-Calogero model of the H2 molecule

The Hooke-Calogero model of the H₂ molecule, a four body system consisting of two protons and two electrons with harmonic electron-nuclear, Coulombic electron-electron and inverse quadratic nuclear-nuclear interactions, has been analyzed in–depth. A fully analytical closed–form non-Born-Oppenheimer solution has been found and based on it the properties of both electron–pair and nuclear–pair densities have been studied. Nuclei have been found to be strongly correlated in a way that resembles a sort of Wigner crystallization, for moderate electron–nucleus confinement strengths. Additionally, we have explicitly evaluated the Coulomb holes for the electrons. Analysis of these holes reveals that the similarity between the electron correlation effects of the model as compared to the real Coulombic systems is remarkable.     

Composite fermion picture for multi-component plasmas in 2D electron–hole systems in a strong magnetic field

Low-lying states of a 2D electron–hole system contain electrons and one or more types of charged excitonic complexes. Binding energies and angular momenta of these excitonic ions, and the pseudopotentials describing their interactions with electrons and with one another are obtained from numerical studies of small systems. Incompressible fluid ground states of such multi-component plasmas are found in exact numerical diagonalizations. A generalized composite fermion (CF) picture involving Chern–Simons charges and fluxes of different types is proposed and shown to predict the low-lying states at any value of the magnetic field.     

Spectral line broadening in quantum wells due to Coulomb interaction of current carriers

A theoretical analysis of emission line broadening due to Coulomb interaction of carriers is performed. An analytical approximation for the spectral line shape function with exponential decays is derived by using the perturbation theory for many-body electron–hole systems for both non-degenerate and degenerate conditions. An explanation of the experimentally observed spectral line asymmetry and the linewidth change as a function of the temperature and the excitation level is given.     

Optical orientation and spin relaxation of resident electrons in n-doped InAs/GaAs self-assembled quantum dots

We report on optical orientation of electrons in n-doped InAs/GaAs quantum dots. Under non-resonant cw optical pumping, we measure a negative circular polarization of the luminescence of charged excitons (or trions) at low temperature (T=10 K). The dynamics of the recombination and of the circular polarization is studied by time-resolved spectroscopy. We discuss a simple theoretical model for the trion relaxation, that accounts for this remarkable polarization reversal. The interpretation relies on the bypass of Pauli blocking allowed by the anisotropic electron–hole exchange. Eventually, the spin relaxation time of doping electrons trapped in quantum dots is measured by a non-resonant pump–probe experiment.     

On surface plasmon damping in metallic nanoparticles

Two possible mechanisms of damping of surface plasmon (SP) oscillations in metallic nanoparticles (MNPs), not connected with the electron–phonon interaction, are investigated theoretically: (a) radiation damping of SPs and (b) resonant coupling of SP oscillations with electronic transitions in the matrix. For the mechanism (a) it is shown that the radiation damping rate is proportional to the number of electrons in a MNP and therefore this channel of energy outflow from the MNP becomes essential for relatively large particles. The strong frequency and size dependence of the radiation damping rate obtained allows us to separate the contributions of radiative processes and the electron–phonon interaction to the energy leakage. The investigation of the mechanism (b) shows that the rate of energy leakage of SP oscillations from a MNP does not depend on particle size and is fully determined by the optical characteristics of the matrix. It is demonstrated that for very small MNPs of -–3 5nm size, where the strong three-dimensional size quantization effect suppresses the electron–phonon interaction, the resonance coupling in certain cases provides an effective energy outflow. PACS 78.67.Bf