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arXiv:1110.5629 · Physical Review B

Resonant modulational instability and self-induced transmission effects in semiconductors: Maxwell-Bloch formalism

Oleksii A. Smyrnov, Fabio Biancalana

Published Feb 6, 2012• 2 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

The nonlinear optical properties of semiconductors near an excitonic resonance are investigated theoretically by using the macroscopic J model [\"Ostreich and Knorr, Phys. Rev. B 48, 17811 (1993); \"Ostreich and Knorr, Phys. Rev. B 50, 5717 (1994)] based on the microscopic semiconductor Bloch equations. These nonlinear properties cause modulational instability of long light pulses with large gain and give rise to a self-induced transmission of short light pulses in a semiconductor. By an example of the latter well-studied effect, the validity of the used macroscopic model is demonstrated, and good agreement is found with both existing theoretical and experimental results.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.85.075201

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The nonlinear optical properties of semiconductors near an excitonic resonance are investigated theoretically by using the macroscopic J model ["Ostreich and Knorr, Phys. Rev. B 48, 17811 (1993); "Ostreich and Knorr, Phys. Rev. B 50, 5717 (1994)] based on the microscopic semiconductor Bloch equations. These nonlinear properties cause modulational instability of long light pulses with large gain and give rise to a self-induced transmission of short light pulses in a semiconductor. By an example of the latter well-studied effect, the validity of the used macroscopic model is demonstrated, and good agreement is found with both existing theoretical and experimental results.
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The main mechanisms for the observed large optical nonlinearities in semiconductors are briefly discussed and illustrated for the example of the exciton ionization by plasma screening. These nonlinearities cause various types of optical bistability, either of intrinsic nature or evoked by an additional resonator feedback. Under certain operation conditions also higher instabilities such as oscillations and chaos can be obtained. As an example, the self-pulsing of an induced absorber in a ring cavity is treated. The resulting locked oscillations are shown to follow a Farey-tree scenarium.
Several modifications of the Maxwell–Bloch equations are presented for analyzing the emission characteristics of pulsed lasers. The analysis is performed under the condition of coherent interaction between light and a gain medium with resonant phase nonlinearity. For the first time, the interrelated factors of instability of the phase relationship of the light field and the response of the medium, caused by the dipole-dipole interaction and the contribution of quasi-resonant polarization, are taken into account. To describe the superradiance (SR) regime, semi-analytical expressions for the response variables in the Bloch vector formalism are refined. Various approximations of the original model are represented by systems of kinetic equations for the field and response variables of the medium, as well as a nonlinear oscillatory equation for the polar angle of the Bloch vector. Modeling of the coherent SR effect in a resonator showed that the temporal structure of SR is extremely sensitive to the resonant nonlinearity of the material response. It is shown that under nonlinear conditions, the typical nutational intensity structure of synchrotron radiation is transformed into a contrasting quasi-periodic modulation of the trailing edge of the main pulse in the subpicosecond range. A computational analysis of the synchrotron radiation process in a resonator is performed for the parameters of semiconductor quantum dot systems in nanoheterostructures. Such systems are considered promising for use in compact optical electronics and photonics devices.
The form invariant coherent pulse propagation in semiconductors excited at 1s-exciton resonance is studied analytically using the reduced semiconductor Maxwell-Bloch equations. The sech-shaped pulse solution for excitonic self-induced transparency (SIT) is presented, showing significant difference in comparison with the well known SIT solution for non-interacting two-level systems. In contrast to 2π pulses in atomic systems, the phenomenon of SIT of interacting excitons in semiconductors occurs for the pulses of area 1.07π. Possible applications of the SIT solitons in semiconductor all-optical switching devices are discussed.
A microscopic many-body theory for the optical and electronic properties of semiconductors is reviewed with an emphasis on the role of correlation effects. At the semiclassical level, the semiconductor Bloch equations include many-body effects via bandgap and field renormalization as well as correlation contributions representing two electron-hole pair amplitudes, excitonic populations, and coupled interband and intraband coherences. These Coulomb interaction induced carrier correlations lead to characteristic signatures in nonlinear semiconductor spectroscopy. At the fully quantum mechanical level the dominant light-matter correlations are described by coupled semiconductor Bloch and luminescence equations. Excitonic emission properties of quantum well and microcavity systems are discussed, including effects such as coherent signatures in the secondary emission and coherent control of the emitted light.