Surface excitations in magnetic systems with a singlet ground state

We have investigated surface excitations in a system wherein the ionic ground state is a magnetic singlet. The pseudospin formalism is employed to account for the crystal-field and exchange interactions between the ions in a Heisenberg ferromagnet with the singlet-triplet crystal-field-only level scheme. The Hamiltonian was studied in the molecular field approximation to find the possible ground states. Surface excitations for the simple cubic structure were investigated for the (001) surface in the random phase approximation. Analytic expressions have been obtained for the thermodynamic Green functions. For a fully magnetized molecular field ground state, there are in general two bulk bands, the spin-wave and the excitonic. Surface modes were found to exist below the spin-wave band, above the excitonic band and between the bands. The dispersion curves can exist only over one or two limited regions of the two-dimensional wave-vector parallel to the crystal surface.     

Excitons and electron-hole plasma in quasi-two-dimensional systems

A theoretical study of many-body effects in quasi-two-dimensional electron-hole systems is presented. The renormalized single-particle energies and the exciton binding energy are calculated as functions of the carrier density and temperature. A simple model for the nonlinear excitonic absorption and refraction is proposed.     

Observation of exciton localization in PbSrSe thin films grown by molecular beam epitaxy

Detailed temperature and excitation-intensity dependence of radiative recombination characteristics in PbSrSe thin films grown by molecular beam epitaxy has investigated. For the first time, localized excitonic structure due to the alloy disorder has been observed at low temperature, and is gradually delocalized as wave-vector-nonconserving band-to-band transitions at high temperature in PbSrSe with low Sr composition. Furthermore, we are able to observe the evolution of the exciton localization, due to the strong alloy fluctuations and lattice distortions, into either free or trapped (strongly localized) excitons at low temperature by studying a PbSrSe thin film with the Sr composition as high as 0.276. The lattice deformation has been shown to play a key role in the composition-dependent excitonic peak broadening in PbSrSe at low temperature. This gives clear evidence for the observation of excitonic effects in lead salts due to their low carrier concentration and enhanced exciton binding energy. The results are discussed in the framework of theories taking into account the carrier migration and exciton trapping due to the alloy fluctuations and lattice vibrations . PACS 78.55.Hx; 78.66.Li     

Time-resolved spectroscopy of excitonic transitions in ZnO/(Zn, Mg)O quantum wells

We report on the optical spectroscopy of a series of ZnO/(Zn, Mg)O quantum wells of different widths, using time-resolved photoluminescence. The samples were grown by molecular beam epitaxy on ZnO templates, themselves deposited on sapphire substrates. The barriers consist of Zn_0.78Mg_0.22O layers. The presence of large internal electric fields in these quantum wells results in a competition between quantum confinement and the quantum confined Stark effect as the quantum well width is varied. A transition energy lying 0.5 eV below the ZnO excitonic gap was observed for the widest of our wells. The PL spectra of the wide quantum wells were obtained using time-integrated photoluminescence, taking a great care with screening effects induced by their very slow dynamics. The effect of the built-in electric field on the excitonic properties was investigated. The excitonic fine structure is shown to depend strongly on the enhancement or suppression of the exchange interaction as a function of the quantum well width.     

Optical absorptions of an exciton in a disc-like quantum dot under an electric field

An exciton in a disc-like quantum dot (QD) with the parabolic confinement, under applied electric field, is studied within the framework of the effective-mass approximation. Both the electric field and the confinement effects on the transition energy and the oscillator strength were investigated. Based on the computed energies and wave functions, the linear, the third-order nonlinear and the total optical absorption coefficients were also calculated. We found that the optical absorption coefficients with considering excitonic effects are stronger than those without considering excitonic effects and the absorption peak will move to the right side induced by the electron-hole interaction, which shows an excitonic effect blue-shift of the resonance in QDs. The applied electric field may affect either the size or the position of absorption peaks of excitons. However, the applied electric field may only affect the size of absorption peaks of an electron-hole pair without considering excitonic effects. It is very important to take excitonic effects into account when we study the optical absorption for disc-like QDs. We may observe the excitonic effect induced by the external electric field.     

Absorption and photoluminescence studies of the temperature dependence of exciton life time in lattice-matched and strained quantum well systems

We present systematic studies of the temperature dependence of linewidths and lifetimes of excitonic transitions in quantum wells grown by molecular beam epitaxy using both photoluminescence(PL) and optical absorption. The temperature ranged from 6K to room temperature. Samples under investigation were lattice-matched GaAs/AlGaAs and InGaAs/InAlAs, and strained InGaAs/GaAs and InGaAs/AlGaAs quantum wellssystems. In addition, the effects of well-size variations in GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells were measured and analyzed. In all cases we were able to observe the excitonic transitions up to room temperature. By a careful fitting of the experimental data we separated the exciton transitions from band-to-band transitions. By deconvoluting the excitonic transitions we obtained the homogeneous and inhomogeneous linewidths. The homogeneous linewidths were used to calculate the exciton lifetimes as a function of temperature using the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. We found the lifetime decreases significantly with temperature and increases with increasing well size. These results are interpreted in terms of the exciton-phonon interaction and are expected to be very useful for the design of semiconductor optical devices operating at different temperatures.     

Simulations of the dynamics of optical bistability with fluctuations

Numerical integrations of the Langevin-equation for the fluctuating light-field in a nonlinear resonator are presented. As an xample, the nonlinearity of the two-photon resonance of the excitonic molecule in semiconductors is treated. Time-dependent switching processes and the response of the system to nonstationary incident fields are investigated with the technique of molecular dynamics simulations. Using many independent realizations of the stochastic process, the time-dependence of the field dostribution function is determined. Furthermore, it is shown that the decay of metastable states can be described by simple exponential decay rates.     

Giant two-photon absorption due to excitonic molecule

The direct excitation of excitonic molecule due to the two-photon absorption process is shown to be strongly enhanced because of two effects of the resonance and the giant oscillator strength as known for the bound exciton. Then it is pointed out that the existence of the excitonic molecule can be confirmed also by this two-photon absorption spectroscopy. We discuss also the property of the excitonic molecules highly excited by this method.     

Nonlocal excitonic–mechanical interaction in a nanosystem

The dynamics of a nanoparticle during its dipole interaction with an excitonic excitation in an extended quasi-one-dimensional polarizable medium is investigated. Bundles of J-aggregates of dye molecules are considered as an example of the latter. The nonlocal excitonic–mechanical interaction between the field of an amplifying or absorbing nanoparticle and excitons in a bundle has been simulated numerically. It has been found that the interaction between the field of the induced nanoparticle dipole and the fields of the molecular dipoles in an aggregate can lead to a change in the particle trajectory and excitonic pulse shape. The possibility of controlling the nanoparticle by excitonic pulses and the reverse effect of the nanoparticle field on the dynamics of excitons due to the nonlocal excitonic–mechanical interaction has been demonstrated.     

Seeing many-body effects in single- and few-layer graphene: observation of two-dimensional saddle-point excitons

Significant excitonic effects were observed in graphene by measuring its optical conductivity in a broad spectral range including the two-dimensional π-band saddle-point singularities in the electronic structure. The strong electron-hole interactions manifest themselves in an asymmetric resonance peaked at 4.62 eV, which is redshifted by nearly 600 meV from the value predicted by ab initio GW calculations for the band-to-band transitions. The observed excitonic resonance is explained within a phenomenological model as a Fano interference of a strongly coupled excitonic state and a band continuum. Our experiment also showed a weak dependence of the excitonic resonance in few-layer graphene on layer thickness. This result reflects the effective cancellation of the increasingly screened repulsive electron-electron (e-e) and attractive electron-hole (e-h) interactions.     

Density of states in the bilayer graphene with the excitonic pairing interaction

In the present paper, we consider the excitonic effects on the single particle normal density of states (DOS) in the bilayer graphene (BLG). The local interlayer Coulomb interaction is considered between the particles on the non-equivalent sublattice sites in different layers of the BLG. We show the presence of the excitonic shift of the neutrality point, even for the noninteracting layers. Furthermore, for the interacting layers, a very large asymmetry in the DOS structure is shown between the particle and hole channels. At the large values of the interlayer hopping amplitude, a large number of DOS at the Dirac’s point indicates the existence of the strong excitonic coherence effects between the layers in the BLG and the enhancement of the excitonic condensation. We have found different competing orders in the interacting BLG. Particularly, a phase transition from the hybridized excitonic insulator phase to the coherent condensate state is shown at the small values of the local interlayer Coulomb interaction.     

Suppression of electron-hole correlations in 3D polymer materials

We present an ab initio study of the optical absorption spectra of isolated as well as crystalline trans-polyacetylene. We include excitonic effects by solving the Bethe-Salpeter equation for the electron-hole two-particle correlation function. We observe that the strength of the electron-hole interactions drastically reduces when going from an isolated polymer chain to a crystalline arrangement. This is not only a result of enhanced screening in the 3D material, but also of the increased spatial extent of the exciton perpendicular to the polymer chains. We point out that these findings apply to crystalline phases of conjugated polymers and molecular crystals in general.     

Ab initio calculation of optical spectra of liquids: many-body effects in the electronic excitations of water

We present ab initio calculations of the excited state properties of liquid water in the framework of many-body Green's function formalism. Snapshots taken from molecular dynamics simulations are used as input geometries to calculate electronic and optical spectra, and the results are averaged over the different configurations. The optical absorption spectra with the inclusion of excitonic effects are calculated by solving the Bethe-Salpeter equation. The insensitivity of screening effects to a particular configuration make these calculations feasible. The resulting spectra, which are strongly modified by many-body effects, are in good agreement with experiments.     

Zone–edge optical transitions in GaAs/AlAs lateral superlattices grown on vicinal surfaces by molecular beam epitaxy

We report on new features in the photoluminescence excitation (PLE) spectra and PLE linear polarization spectra of GaAs/AlAs lateral superlattices grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). These lines appear systematically as the tilt angle of the lateral superlattice is varied. They are identified as zone–edge excitonic transitions by comparison between experimental data and detailed numerical calculations of optical transitions including valence-band mixing and tilt effects.     

Electromagnetic transparency and slow light in an isotropic 3D optical metamaterial, due to Fano-like coupling of Mie resonances in excitonic nano-sphere inclusions

A three dimensional isotropic metamaterial is proposed and theoretically studied, which is composed of excitonic spherical nanoparticles in a dielectric host and exhibits electromagnetic transparency and slow light effects in optical regime. The approach is different from the conventional methods of realizing classical Electromagnetically Induced Transparency (EIT) or plasmon induced transparency effects, which are usually based on the interaction of dark and bright states of the medium plasmonic constituents. Instead, it is based on the Fano-like coupling of Mie resonances in the spherical inclusions, resulting from sharp and strong excitonic resonance of the particles. Using the Extended Maxwell Garnett effective medium approximation for calculating the effective electromagnetic parameters of the proposed metamaterial structure, it is shown that EIT-like effects can be produced, such as steep normal dispersion profiles within narrow transparency windows, resulting in high values of group index of refraction on the order of several thousands and figure of merit values around 10, near the excitonic resonance of the nanoparticle inclusions in UV region.     

Effect of alloy disorder and structural defects on excitonic properties in (100)- and (311)-Oriented InGaAs/GaAs quantum wells

The properties of excitonic states in pseudomorphic, (100)- and (311)-oriented In_0.2Ga_0.8As/GaAs quantum well (QW) structures are investigated. Strained QW's with different states of strain and segregation were grown by molecular beam epitaxy. No growth interruption was carried out at the interfaces. This approach allows us to reduce the segregation effects in samples having (311)A orientation. As a result, quite sharp gaussian shaped excitonic transitions with line width of about 0.8 meV have been demonstrated. We find significant differences in the optical properties, growth kinetic and defect formation of samples for the three orientations. The alloy disorder is smaller in the (311)A orientations than in the (311)B and (100) ones. An anomalous broadening of the excitonic line width is observed in case of samples having (311)B orientation and is accounted for structural defects other than those produced by alloy disorder. Surface wells are used in conjunction with In surface segregation and evaporation effects. Different activation energies for the indium desorption from the (311)A and B surfaces are obtained. We state that the different alloy and defect states are originated in the different strain relaxation mechanism and surface reaction kinetic in the three non equivalent (311) and (100) surfaces.     

Carbon nanotubes as substrates for molecular spiropyran-based switches

We present a joint theory-experiment study investigating the excitonic absorption of spiropyran-functionalized carbon nanotubes. The functionalization is promising for engineering switches on a molecular level, since spiropyrans can be reversibly switched between two different conformations, inducing a distinguishable and measurable change of optical transition energies in the substrate nanotube. Here, we address the question of whether an optical read-out of such a molecular switch is possible. Combining density matrix and density functional theory, we first calculate the excitonic absorption of pristine and functionalized nanotubes. Depending on the switching state of the attached molecule, we observe a red-shift of transition energies by about 15?meV due to the coupling of excitons with the molecular dipole moment. Then we perform experiments measuring the absorption spectrum of functionalized carbon nanotubes for both conformations of the spiropyran molecule. We find good qualitative agreement between the theoretically predicted and experimentally measured red-shift, confirming the possibility for an optical read-out of the nanotube-based molecular switch.     

半导体微结构物理效应及其应用讲座第三讲半导体的激子效应及其在光电子器件中的应用

人们对半导体中的电子空穴对在库仑互作用下形成的激子态及其有关的物理性质进行了深入研究.激子效应对半导体中的光吸收、发光、激射和光学非线性作用等物理过程具有重要影响,并在半导体光电子器件的研究和开发中得到了重要的应用.与半导体体材料相比,在量子化的低维电子结构中,激子的束缚能要大得多,激子效应增强,而且在较高温度或在电场作用下更稳定.这对制作利用激子效应的光电子器件非常有利.近年来量子阱、量子点等低维结构研究获得飞速的进展,已大大促进了激子效应在新型半导体光源和半导体非线性光电子器件领域的应用.     

Features of the excitonic optical reflection curves of GaAs crystals

The excitonic optical reflection curves are investigated for GaAs crystals subjected to a surface-sensitive electron bombardment. The observed features of the curves can be explained on a qualitative level by using an extremely simple square-well approximation of the subsurface excitonic potential. Fiz. Tverd. Tela (St. Petersburg) 39, 610–612 (April 1997)