Simultaneous decay kinetics of drops and excitons luminescence in silicon

The lifetime of drops and the enhancement factor in silicon are deduced from simultaneous decay kinetics of drops and exciton luminescence.The determination of the drops lifetime does not require the knowledge of the exciton lifetime.The results yield: τ_g = 105 ηsec? = 9.     

Evidence for Bose-Einstein condensation of free excitons in AgBr

We report the observation of a sharp photoluminescence line in AgBr at 2.6754 eV below 3 K. Spectral position, width and temperature dependence of the intensity can only be explained by us consistently with the assumption that this line is due to the recombination of Bose-Einstein condensed indirect excitons.     

Two-photon correlations of luminescence at the Bose-Einstein condensation of dipolar excitons

Correlations of the luminescence intensity (the second-order correlation function g ⁽²⁾(τ)), where τ is the delay time between the photons detected in pairs) under the conditions of the Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of dipolar excitons has been studied in a temperature range of 0.45–4.2 K. Photoexcited dipolar excitons have been accumulated in a lateral trap in a GaAs/AlGaAs Schottky diode with a 25-nm wide single quantum well with an electric bias applied across the heterolayers. Two-photon correlations have been measured with the use of a two-beam intensity interferometer with a time resolution of }~0.4 ns according to the well-known classical Hanbury-Brown-Twiss scheme. The photon bunching has been observed at the onset of Bose-Einstein condensation manifested by the appearance of a narrow exciton condensate line in the luminescence spectrum at an increase in the optical pumping (the line width near the threshold is ?200 μeV). At the same time, the two-photon correlation function itself obeys the super-Poisson distribution, g ⁽²⁾(τ) > 1, at time scale τ_c ? 1 ns of the system coherence. The photon bunching is absent at a pumping level substantially below the condensation threshold. The effect of bunching also decreases at pumping significantly above the threshold, when the narrow exciton condensate line starts to dominate in the luminescence spectra, and finally disappears with the further increase in the optical excitation. In this region, the distribution of pair photon correlations is a Poisson distribution manifesting the united quantum coherent state of the exciton condensate. Under the same conditions, the first-order spatial correlation function g ⁽¹⁾(r) determined from the interference pattern of the luminescence signals from the spatially separated parts of the condensate at constant pumping remains noticeable at distances of no less than 4 μm. The discovered effect of photon bunching is very sensitive to temperature and decreases by several times with a temperature increase in the range of 0.45–4.2 K. Assuming that the luminescence of the dipolar excitons directly reflects the coherence properties of the gas of interacting excitons, the discovered photon bunching at the onset of condensation, where the fluctuations of the exciton density and, consequently, of the luminescence intensity are most significant, indicates a phase transition in the interacting Bose gas of excitons, which is an independent way of detecting the Bose-Einstein condensation of excitons.     

Temperature dependence of luminescence intensity under Bose condensation of interwell excitons

Photoluminescence of interwell excitons in GaAs/AlGaAs double quantum wells (n-i-n heterostructure) containing large-scale random potential fluctuations in the planes of heteroboundaries is studied. The properties of excitons, in which a photoexcited electron and a hole are spatially separated in neighboring quantum wells, were investigated upon variation of the power density of off-resonance laser excitation and temperature (1.5–4.2 K), both under lateral (in the heteroboundary plane) confinement of the excitation region to a few micrometers and without such a limitation (directly from the region of laser-induced photoexcitation focused to a spot not exceeding 30 μ. Under low pumping (with a power smaller than a microwatt), interwell excitons are strongly localized due to small-scale random potential fluctuations and the corresponding photoluminescence line is nonhomogeneously broadened to 2.5–3.0 meV. With increasing pumping power, the narrow line of delocalized excitons with a width of approximately 1 meV emerges in a threshold manner (the intensity of this line increases superlinearly near the threshold with increasing pumping). For a fixed pumping, the intensity of this line decreases linearly upon heating until it completely vanishes from the spectrum. The observed effect is attributed to Bose condensation in a quasi-two-dimensional system of interwell excitons. Within the proposed model, we show that the linear mode in the behavior of the luminescence intensity until its disappearance in the continuum of the photoluminescence spectrum upon a change in temperature is observed only for the condensed part of interwell excitons. At the same time, the luminescence of the above-the-condensate part of excitons is almost insensitive to temperature variations in the temperature range studied.     

A new shoulder in luminescence spectra due to the triplet excitons in AgBr

Magneto-optical measurements of pure AgBr have been extended to cover the luminescence study. A new and intrinsic shoulder in luminescence spectra supposed to be due to “the indirect allowed triplet excitons” has been found, for the first time, for zone refined AgBr crystals at high magnetic fields up to 50 kOe.     

Linear polarization of luminescence in Bose-Einstein condensation of indirect excitons and spontaneous symmetry breaking

The linear polarization of luminescence from the Bose-Einstein condensate of dipolar (indirect) excitons accumulated in the ring lateral traps in GaAs/AlGaAs Schottky-diode heterostructures with a wide single quantum well has been observed. Luminescence from direct excitons remains unpolarized under the same experimental conditions. It has been shown that the linear polarization of the exciton condensate may arise from the anisotropic electron-hole (e–h) exchange interaction associated with the lateral anisotropy of the confining potential. The interaction mixes and splits the ground state of optically active excitons on heavy holes (with angular momentum projections of m=±1). The split spectral components from the corresponding angular momentum projections are linearly polarized in mutually orthogonal directions. Under this e–h exchange, the condensate component of excitons should appear in the lowest of the split states and luminescence from the Bose-Einstein condensate of excitons in such a split state becomes linearly polarized along the 〈110〉 crystallographic direction in the quantum well plane. The observed effect is a manifestation of spontaneous symmetry breaking in Bose-Einstein condensation of excitons.     

Effective scatterings between electrons,excitons and trions

The final goal of this paper is to derive the effective scattering ruling the time evolution of two semiconductor trions using the many-body formalism for composite fermions we have just proposed. However, to understand the importance of the particle composite nature, their bosonic/fermionic character and their overall charge, we also report on scatterings between free electrons, excitons and trions. This leads us to identify the form factors associated to direct processes involving excitons and trions. For transitions between ground states, these form factors reduce to zero and one respectively, in the small momentum transfer limit.     

Zero-phonon transition of free electrons to bound holes in heavily gallium-doped silicon

A radiative zero-phonon transition of free electrons to bound holes has been observed in heavily gallium-doped silicon at various temperatures. This electronic transition competes with excitonic transitions, and dominates at high temperatures.     

Interaction between free carriers,free excitons,and electron-hole drops in germanium

Under steady-state conditions, we have observed an increase of photo-conductivity in Ge at low temperature simultaneously with radiation from electron-hole drops. A set of rate equations for a 3-phase system of carriers, free excitons and drops are used to interpret the results. Values of the exciton-recombination coefficient and the lifetimes of the three phases are determined.     

Analysis of LO and TO phonon assisted free exciton luminescence in silicon

Linefits are made of LO and TO phonon assisted free exciton luminescence spectra in silicon. The temperature range covered is 1.55–4.0 K. Values of the recombination rates, the phonon energy splitting, the intrinsic line broadening, and the exciton ground state splitting are deduced. The splitting of the indirect ground state is found to be 0.31±0.03 meV.     

Spin fluctuations of nonequilibrium electrons and excitons in semiconductors

Effects that are related to deviations from thermodynamic equilibrium have a special place in modern physics. Among these, nonequilibrium phenomena in quantum systems attract the highest interest. The experimental technique of spin-noise spectroscopy has became quite widespread, which makes it possible to observe spin fluctuations of charge carriers in semiconductors under both equilibrium and nonequilibrium conditions. This calls for the development of a theory of spin fluctuations of electrons and electron–hole complexes for nonequilibrium conditions. In this paper, we consider a range of physical situations where a deviation from equilibrium becomes pronounced in the spin noise. A general method for the calculation of electron and exciton spin fluctuations in a nonequilibrium state is proposed. A short review of the theoretical and experimental results in this area is given.     

Polariton condensation with localized excitons and propagating photons

We estimate the condensation temperature for microcavity polaritons, allowing for their internal structure. We consider polaritons formed from localized excitons in a planar microcavity, using a generalized Dicke model. At low densities, we find a condensation temperature T(c) proportional, rho, as expected for a gas of structureless polaritons. However, as T(c) becomes of the order of the Rabi splitting, the structure of the polaritons becomes relevant, and the condensation temperature is that of a BCS-like mean-field theory. We also calculate the excitation spectrum, which is related to observable quantities such as the luminescence and absorption spectra.     

Doublet luminescence due to coexistence of excitons and electron-hole plasmas in optically excited CH3NH3PbBr3 single crystal

Doublet luminescence from hybrid metal trihalide perovskite semiconductors is observed along with materials processing when high-quality single crystals are obtainable. Yet, the underlying physical mechanism remains poorly understood. Here, we report controllable solution-processed crystallization that affords high-quality CH₃NH₃PbBr₃ single crystals with atomically flat pristine surfaces. Front-face photoluminescence (PL) shows doublet luminescence components with variable relative intensities depending on the crystal surface conditions. We further find that the low-energy PL component with asymmetric spectral line-shape becomes predominant when the atomically flat crystal surfaces are passivated in the ion-abundant saturated solutions, while poor-quality single crystal with visually rough surface only gives the high-energy PL with symmetric line-shape. The asymmetric spectral line-shape of the low-energy PL matches perfectly with the simulated bandedge emission. Therefore, the low-energy PL component is attributable to the intrinsic bandedge emission from the crystal bulk while the high-energy one to surface-specific emission. Elliott fitting to the absorption data and multi-exponential fitting to the time-resolved photoluminescence traces jointly indicate the coexistence of excitons and electron-hole plasmas in optically excited CH₃NH₃PbBr₃ single crystals, thereby catching the physical merit that leads to the occurrence of doublet luminescence.     

Far-infrared absorption by excitons in silicon

We report on the first observation of 1s to 2p absorption by excitons in pure silicon. A group of strong lines at 10.2, 11.4 and 12.0 meV is observed along with a continuum extending to higher frequency. A theoretical model for the excitonic absorption accounts well for the observed structure.     

Singlet-triplet splittings in free and self-trapped excitons

We discuss the available experimental data for the singlet-triplet splitting of free and self-trapped excitons in alkali halides. These data are analysed quantitatively using the pseudopotential method of Bartram, Stoneham and Gash. The predictions confirm the trend emerging from the observed data, namely that the splittings are systematically lower for the self-trapped systems. This difference comes principally from the spread of the self-trapped hole onto two ions, and would not be expected, for example, if the hole were localised on a single site.     

Bose condensation of interwell excitons in double quantum wells

The luminescence of interwell excitons in double quantum wells GaAs/AlGaAs (n-i-n heterostructures) with large-scale fluctuations of random potential in the heteroboundary planes was studied. The properties of excitons whose photoexcited electron and hole are spatially separated in the neighboring quantum wells were studied as functions of density and temperature within the domains on the scale less than one micron. For this purpose, the surfaces of the samples were coated with a metallic mask containing specially prepared holes (windows) of a micron size an less for the photoexcitation and observation of luminescence. For weak pumping (less than 50 μW), the interwell excitons are strongly localized because of small-scale fluctuations of a random potential, and the corresponding photoluminescence line is inhomogeneously broadened (up to 2.5 meV). As the resonant excitation power increases, the line due to the delocalized excitons arises in a thresholdlike manner, after which its intensity linearly increases with increasing pump power, narrows (the smallest width is 350 μeV), and undergoes a shift (of about 0.5 μeV) to lower energies, in accordance with the filling of the lowest state in the domain. With a rise in temperature, this line disappears from the spectrum (T _c ≤ 3.4 K). The observed phenomenon is attributed to Bose-Einstein condensation in a quasi-two-dimensional system of interwell excitons. In the temperature range studied (1.5–3.4 K), the critical exciton density and temperature increase almost linearly with temperature.