Terahertz/optical mixing in symmetric semiconductor quantum wells embedded in optical microcavities

A quantum well (QW) in the simultaneous presence of a terahertz field polarized in the growth direction and an incident optical field near an excitonic resonance results in substantial frequency mixing between the terahertz and optical fields. In particular, a response at new frequencies given by the input optical frequency plus or minus multiples of the terahertz frequency occurs-the terahertz sidebands. In a symmetric QW, the dominant contribution to terahertz-sideband formation is the high-frequency modulation of the overlap integral of the relevant conduction- and valence-subband envelope functions that determine the strength of the interband dipole moment. terahertz-sideband generation is shown to be strongly enhanced in a high quality-factor optical microcavity. Numerical values of the reflected intensity into the first terahertz sideband normalized with respect to the reflected intensity at the fundamental as large as /spl sim/10% are estimated. This suggests that terahertz-sideband generation in semiconductor microcavities is a promising option worthy of exploration for wavelength conversion for wavelength-division multiplexing applications.     

Theory of gain in quantum-wire lasers grown in V-grooves

Theoretical calculations of gain, refractive index change, differential gain, and threshold current for GaAs-AlGaAs quantum-wire lasers grown in V-shaped grooves are presented. The theoretical model is based on the density-matrix formalism with intraband relaxation, and the subband structure is calculated within the effective bond-orbital model. For the quantum-wire geometry treated, agreement with the observed subband spacings is found. Because of the small overlap of the optical field with the active region for a single quantum wire, lasing threshold is reached only when several subbands are filled     

Enhancing optical-feedback-induced chaotic dynamics in semiconductor ring lasers via optical injection

In this paper, we investigate the possibility of using optical injection to efficiently suppress the time-delay (TD) signatures of chaotic signals in a large experimentally accessible parameter range of semiconductor ring lasers (SRLs). We also study how this optical injection can improve the signal bandwidths. The injection signal is obtained from a master SRL with either optical self- or cross-feedback. For optical self-feedback configurations, it is found that the suppression of TD signatures is similar to what has been found in injected Fabry–Perot semiconductor lasers, i.e., narrow range of parameters with respect to the detuning and injection strengths. For cross-feedback configurations, however, the TD signatures can be suppressed in a wide range of parameters; meanwhile, the bandwidths are significantly improved for the same range of parameters. This is particularly useful for the security in chaos-based communications and also for generating random bits with improved properties.     

Coherent and incoherent dynamics of excitons in semiconductor microcavities

Il Nuovo Cimento D - We have investigated the dynamics of impulsively excited planar microcavities in the strongly couple regime. With resonant, coherent excitation, the emitted light shows...     

Magnetic Bloch oscillations in nanowire superlattice rings

The recent growth of semiconductor nanowire superlattices encourages hope that Bloch-like oscillations in such structures formed into rings may soon be observed in the presence of a time-dependent magnetic flux threading the ring. These magnetic Bloch oscillations are a consequence of Faraday's law; the time-dependent flux produces an electromotive force around the ring, thus leading to the Bloch-like oscillations. In the spectroscopic domain, generalized Wannier-Stark states are found that are manifestations of the emf-induced localization of the states.