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.     

Size dependence of ground-state energy of the excitons in spherical Y2O3

The exciton energies of rare earth oxides (Ln₂O₃) have rarely been calculated by the theory. Experimentally, the blue-shift of exciton energy in nanocrystals deviates from the traditional size confinement effect. Herein, the dependence of the ground-state energy of an exciton in Y₂O₃ spheres on particle radius was calculated by using a variational method. In the model, an exciton confined in a sphere surrounded by a dielectric continuum shell was considered. The ground-state energy of exciton comprises kinetic energy, coulomb energy, polarization energy and exciton–phonon interaction energy. The kinetic and coulomb energy were considered by the effective mass and the dielectric continuum and the exciton–phonon interaction energy was given by the intermediate coupling method. The numerical results demonstrate that the present model is roughly consistent with the experimental results. The confinement effect of the kinetic energy is dominant of the blue-shift of the exciton energy in the region of R < 5 nm, while confinement effect of the coulomb energy is dominant of the blue-shift of the exciton energy in the region of R > 5 nm. The polarization energy contributes largely to the exciton energy as the particle size is smaller than ~ 10 nm, while the exciton–phonon interaction energy takes only a little contribution in all the range.     

Photoluminescence properties of exciton–exciton scattering in a GaAs/AlAs multiple quantum well

We report on the photoluminescence (PL) properties of a GaAs (20 nm)/AlAs (20 nm) multiple quantum well under high-density-excitation conditions at excitation energies near the fundamental exciton energies. The biexciton-PL band is dominant in a relatively low-excitation-power region. The PL originating from exciton–exciton scattering, the so-called P emission, suddenly appears with an increase in excitation power. The excitation-energy dependence of the intensity of the P-PL band indicates that the excitation energy higher than the fundamental heavy-hole exciton by the energy of the longitudinal optical (LO) phonon is the most efficient for the P PL. This suggests that the LO-phonon scattering plays an important role in the relaxation process of excitons leading to the P PL. The appearance of the P-PL band remarkably suppresses the intensity of the biexciton-PL band; namely, the exciton–exciton scattering process prevents the formation of biexcitons. Furthermore, we have confirmed the existence of optical gain due to the exciton–exciton scattering process with use of a variable-stripe-length method.     

Exciton formation with interchain couplings in organic polymers

Based on the framework of the tight binding approach and the nonadiabatic dynamics, the formation of an exciton in inter-coupled polymer chains is studied. Both a localized exciton in one single chain and a spread exciton between chains are obtained. It is found that an excited electron-hole pair is more inclined to evolve into a localized exciton, and the long range Coulomb e-e interaction is favorable to the exciton formation. By calculating the formation time of an exciton, we show that the optical response time is faster in a dilute solution than that in a solid film of polymer molecules.     

Free exciton luminescence lineshape of Hg0.3Cd0.7Te

The photoluminescence spectrum of Hg_0.3Cd_0.7Te at 77K includes a narrow, high energy free exciton line. This experimental spectrum is in good agreement with the theoretical free exciton lineshape, the Gaussian broadening of this line is due to alloy inhomogeneity, and the binding energy of the bound exciton with respect to the free exciton at 77K is 13 ± 4 meV.     

Effect of disorder on the trapping of Frenkel excitons in three-dimensional systems

A numerical study is made of the effect of disorder on the trapping of Frenkel excitons in three-dimensional systems atT=0 K. A Gaussian distribution of optical transition frequencies is assumed. The disorder enhances the decay of ak = 0 exciton created by pulsed optical excitation, but reduces the overall exciton trapping rate. An interpretation of the results in terms of increased exciton scattering and reduced exciton mobility is outlined.     

Radiative and nonradiative recombination of self-trapped exciton on silicon nanocrystal interface

The theory of the multiphonon and radiative recombination of a self-trapped exciton on the interface of a silicon nanocrystal in a SiO₂ matrix is developed. Self-trapped excitons play a key role in the hot carrier dynamics in nanocrystals under photoexcitation. The ratio of the probabilities of the multiphonon and radiative recombination of the self-trapped exciton is estimated. The probabilities of exciton tunnel transition from the self-trapped state to a nanocrystal are calculated for nanocrystals of various sizes. The infrared range spectrum of the luminescence of the self-trapped exciton is obtained.     

Effets de défauts cristallins sur le spectre d’absorption excitonique de Cu2O

A theory of the effects of lattice defects on the yellow series of the exciton absorption spectrum of Cu₂O is presented. In particular, the effects of lattice defects due to fast neutron irradiation is treated. It is shown that the modification of exciton absorption spectrum, the appearing of the exciton fine structure lines in particular, is due to the deformation potential associated with the large defect clusters which are produced by the fast neutron bombardment. An analogy is established between this effect and the Stark exciton effect observed under externally applied electric field. It is shown that the Stark effect of exciton may be considered as a particular example of the problem that we treat. Several models of deformation potentials are proposed to calculate the variation of the oscillator strength of the exciton absorption lines in Cu₂O as a function of flux of fast neutrons. The effects of point defects are also studied. It is shown that the point defects are not at the origin of the observed fine structure of exciton, but they may shift and broaden exciton obsorption lines. These theoretical considerations are compared qualitatively with experimental results.     

Photoreflection and photoconduction spectra of CdS crystals: Excitons in the electric fields of surface states

The exciton photoreflection spectra of CdS crystals are studied. It is found that the form of the exciton photoreflection spectrum is determined by a Stark shift of the exciton energy in the electric field of surface states. The dependences of the exciton photoreflection spectrum on temperature on the intensity and wavelength of the modulating radiation, and on the processes by which the photoreflection signal relaxes is determined. An energy scheme is proposed for the surface states which explains the observed effects of photoinduced changes in the surface field. A correlation is established between the exciton photoreflection spectrum and the form of the fine structure in the photoconductivity. Fiz. Tverd. Tela (St. Petersburg) 40, 875–876 (May 1998)     

Exciton band structure of crystalline anthracene

The density of states in the first exciton band of crystalline anthracene has been obtained at room, dry-ice-alcohol, and liquid nitrogen temperatures by applying a thermal modulation technique to observe the hot band-first exciton band optical transition (1-0 transition). The density of states function obtained has been interpreted in terms of the exciton band structure and the Davydov splitting. The K dependent selection rule for the 1-0 transition is discussed. The bandwidth of the first exciton band is 0.09 eV.     

Optical absorption of triplet molecular excitons in alkali cyanides

The optical absorption spectra of alkali cyanides in the UV region present a set of weak absorption bands which are identified as triplet a'³Σ⁺ molecular excitons. The nature of the molecular exciton transitions in the ionic-molecular crystals is discussed and the existence of an admixture between molecular exciton and charge transfer exciton states is suggested.     

Exciton-plasma transition in GaAs

In this work, we study the stability of excitons at high density, i.e. we calculate the reduction of the exciton binding energy due to exciton-exciton interactions in a high-density exciton gas. We derive first the effective electron-hole interaction in the presence of free carriers and excitons. We use the static approximation. The exciton binding energy is calculated by the variational technique. The computations are specialized to GaAs. We investigate the critical density when the exciton binding disappears, which corresponds to the exciton plasma transition. We conclude that this transition occurs at higher density than the reverse plasma exciton transition, determined by the standard criteria a₀q_D =1.19 [Rogers F. J., Graboske H. C., Jr. and Harword D. J., Phys. Rev.A1, 1577 (1970)].     

Exciton states in alkali halides

Recent experiments based on modulation spectroscopy have shown that it is possible to detect exciton levels in alkali halides up to n = 4. Therefore we worked out numerical calculations in order to predict the whole exciton series in KI and RbI. In our calculations the deep exciton levels are treated by considering the actual hole-electron interaction, whereas the effective mass approximation is used for the shallow exciton levels. The direct and exchange terms of the hole-electron interaction have been evaluated by performing three and four center integrals, the Wannier wave functions appearing in such integrals being approximated by suitable gaussian expansions of atomic orbitals.It is shown that by allowing the exciton state to extend up to 42 shells of neighbors it is possible to predict the exciton levels up to n = 2, the n = 3, 4 excitons being accounted for by the effective mass approximation. Similar computations performed for excitons in solid rare gases were found in excellent agreement with the experimental data and confirmed the reliability of our method.     

Analytical Ground-State of an Exciton Trapped in a Circular Parabolic Quantum Dot in the Presence of a Magnetic Field

The quasi-exact properties of an exciton are investigated theoretically in the presence of an external magnetic field using the effective-mass approach in GaAs parabolic quantum dot. The energy spectrum is obtained analytically as a function of the dot radius, interaction strength and magnetic field. It is established that, a steady bound state of an exciton in the ground state exists under the effect of a strong magnetic field; also I noticed that the exciton binding energy decreases by increasing both the radius of the dot and the magnetic field strength and the reduction becomes pronounced for larger dots. As expected, it has been found that the exciton total energy decreases with increasing the size of the dot and it enhances by increasing the magnetic field. It appears that the exciton total energy strongly depends on the magnetic field for dots with big size. The magnetic field effect on the exciton size also has been studied. It is shown that the increase in the magnetic field leads to a reduction in the exciton size; due to magnetic field confinement, while the size of an exciton reach its bulk limit as the dot size increases. Moreover, it is shown that, if the dot radius is sufficiently large the oscillator strength saturates and it becomes insensitive to the magnetic field while the increase in the magnetic field gradually weakened the oscillator strength. I have calculated the ground-state distribution for both the electron and the hole. It is found that the localization of the electron/hole increases in the presence of a magnetic field. Moreover, the ground-state optical-absorption intensity is investigated. Finally, the dependence of the lowest five states of an exciton on both the dot radius and the magnetic field are discussed.

     

Propagation of quasi-two dimensional exciton polaritons in a quantum well waveguide

The propagation of exciton polaritons in an optical waveguide with a quantum well is studied. Spatial dispersion of the excitons causes the wave vector of the exciton polaritons to split between waveguide and exciton modes at resonance. The magnitude of this splitting is determined by the radiative decay parameter of excitons with corresponding polarization in the quantum well. The group velocity of the waveguide exciton polaritons in the resonance region can be three or four orders of magnitude lower than the speed of light in vacuum. Fiz. Tverd. Tela (St. Petersburg) 40, 362–365 (February 1998)     

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.     

Two-dimensional exciton-phonon system in a magnetic field

The properties of an exciton at the surface of a polar crystal in a weak magnetic fieldB, which is perpendicular to the surface and is constant, are discussed by a perturbational method. Taking account of the effects from the surface modes of the lattice vibrations and on ground of a slow motion of the exciton, the self-energy of an exciton, the effective potential and renormalized masses are derived. The self-energy of the exciton becomes higher under the action of the magnetic field.Center of Theoretical Physics, CCAST (World Laboratory)     

On the problem of non-equilibrium population of excitons

The non-linear response of the exciton system is considered and non-equilibrium exciton populations are calculated. It is shown that in the high frequency domain (ω > ω_c ≈ 10^-13 s^-1) the role and the influence of the external perturbation on the exciton population becomes unimportant.     

Excitons in quantum—dot quantum—well nanoparticles

A variational calculation is presented for the ground-state properties of excitons confined in spherical core-shell quantum-dot quantum-well (QDQW) nanoparticles. The relationship between the exciton states and structure parameters of QDQW nanoparticles is investigated, in which both the heavy-hole and the light-hole exciton states are considered. The results show that the confinement energies of the electron and hole states and the exciton binding energies depend sensitively on the well width and core radius of the QDQW structure. A detailed comparison between the heavy-hole and light-hole exciton states is given. Excellent agreement is found between experimental results and our calculated 1s_e－1s_h transition energies.     

Exciton trapping, binding and diamagnetic shift in T-shaped quantum wires

We determine the exciton states of T-shaped quantum wires. We use anisotropic effective-mass models to describe the electron and hole states. Pair correlation along the wire axis and in the lateral directions is included. We accurately model the measured redshifts between exciton photoluminescence in quantum wells and T-shaped wires. This redshift arises from enhanced exciton binding and the difference between well and wire confinement energy. We predict a large enhancement of binding energy only when lateral correlation is included, indicating that T-shaped wires arequasirather thanquantum1D wires. We calculate exciton shapes and diamagnetic shifts to determine how the exciton is distorted when confined in a T-wire.