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Quantum Electronics and Laser Science Conference

Exciton condensation in potential traps

Леонид Викторович Бутов, C. W. Lai, A. L. Ivanov, Arthur C. Gossard, D. S. Chemla

Published Jun 25, 2003• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Summary form only given. In the dilute limit excitons behave as weakly interacting Bose particles and are expected to undergo the Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC). Because the exciton mass is very small at experimentally accessible exciton densities the critical temperature for exciton BEC should reach several Kelvins, i.e., about six orders of magnitude higher than the T/sub c/ for atom BEC. To create degenerate Bose-gas of excitons we propose quasi-2D gas of indirect excitons in coupled quantum wells (CQWs) which have two primary advantages for realizing a quantum degenerate exciton gas and, ultimately, the BEC-like phase transition: (i) the long lifetime of indirect excitons and (ii) the short exciton cooling time.

DOI
10.1109/qels.2002.1031262

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Summary form only given. In the dilute limit excitons behave as weakly interacting Bose particles and are expected to undergo the Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC). Because the exciton mass is very small at experimentally accessible exciton densities the critical temperature for exciton BEC should reach several Kelvins, i.e., about six orders of magnitude higher than the T/sub c/ for atom BEC. To create degenerate Bose-gas of excitons we propose quasi-2D gas of indirect excitons in coupled quantum wells (CQWs) which have two primary advantages for realizing a quantum degenerate exciton gas and, ultimately, the BEC-like phase transition: (i) the long lifetime of indirect excitons and (ii) the short exciton cooling time.
Quasiparticles in quantum many-body systems have essential roles in modern physical problems. Bose–Einstein condensation (BEC) of excitons in semiconductors is one of the unobserved quantum statistical phenomena predicted in the photoexcited quasiparticles in many-body electrons. In particular, para-excitons in cuprous oxide have been studied for decades because the decoupling from the radiation field makes the coherent ensemble a purely matter-like wave. However, BEC has turned out to be hard to realize at superfluid liquid helium-4 temperatures due to a two-body inelastic collision process. It is therefore essential to set a lower critical density by further lowering the exciton temperature. Here we cool excitons to sub-Kelvin temperature and spatially confine them to realize the critical number for BEC. We show that BEC manifests itself as a relaxation explosion as has been discussed in atomic hydrogen. The results indicate that dilute excitons are purely bosonic and BEC indeed occurs. Bose–Einstein condensation of excitons in thermal equilibrium is a predicted quantum statistical phenomenon that has been difficult to observe. Yoshiokaet al. cool trapped excitons to sub-Kelvin temperatures and show that condensation manifests itself as a relaxation explosion as has been observed for atomic hydrogen.
Physics A fascinating property of the quantum world is that particles come equipped with a dual, wavelike nature, which becomes apparent at low temperatures and high densities. For a certain type of particle, bosons, this results in the formation of a giant wave, a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). BECs have been realized in laser-trapped ultracold gases of alkali elements, but bosons that exist elsewhere in nature are also expected to condense. An exciton is a composite boson consisting of an electron and a hole (a missing electron) in a semiconductor. High et al. take a page out of the atomic physicists' book and demonstrate the condensation of excitons in a trap. A spatially varying electric field traps the excitons' dipole moments, which are nonzero because of the spatial separation of electrons and holes in a GaAs/AlGaAs coupled quantum well (such so-called indirect excitons also have the advantage of a long lifetime necessary for cooling). When the temperature is lowered below ~2 K, the excitons collect at the trap center, and the entire trap volume becomes coherent, signifying the onset of a BEC. The realization of a BEC in a trapped semiconductor system is expected to enable explorations complementary to those possible with ultracold atomic gases. Nano Lett. 12 , 10.1021/nl300983n (2012).
Condensate Formation in the Bose Gas An important question in connection with the experiments aimed at achieving BEC of a weakly interacting Bose gas with a finite lifetime is the time needed for the formation of the condensate. It is not at all evident that the condensation can always take place within the lifetime of the system. For the case of liquid He, the assumption of equilibrium seems satisfied because 4 He atoms, which do not decay, undergo roughly 10 11 interparticle-scattering events per second, assuming classical hard-sphere scattering. In other boson systems, however, nonequilibrium effects may have a significant effect. For excitons in a semiconductor, the lifetime of the particle may be only a few hundred scattering times. Spin-polarized hydrogen also has a finite lifetime to nonpolarized states [1], and alkali atoms can recombine into molecules [2]. Naively judging from classical behavior, one might assume that hundreds of scattering times may seem more than adequate time to establish equilibrium. The case of Bose condensation is unique, however, since a macroscopic number of particles must enter a single quantum state that by random-scattering processes alone is highly improbable. Therefore we need not assume that the time for Bose condensation is short. Early experiments with orthoexcitons in CU 2 O seemed to indicate that the excitons might not have enough time to condense within their lifetime [3]. As discussed in Subsection 1.4.3, the orthoexciton density increased to approach the BEC boundary given in Eq. (1.18) and highly degenerate Bose-Einstein momentum distributions were observed, but a significant condensate fraction did not appear. Instead the gas increased its temperature to accommodate extra particles, reaching temperatures well above the lattice temperature.
The condensed state and superfluidity of excitons in type-II semiconductor quantum wells (QW's) are investigated theoretically. Since the excitons in type-II QW's have translational motion along the layer, the assembly of them is regarded as an interacting dilute quasi-two-dimensional Bose gas. This system is advantageous for our purpose because those excitons have a long lifetime of the order of ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}6}\mathrm{s},$ and their transport mechanism can be directly studied in experiments by observing electric current since the excitons consist of spatially separated electron-hole pairs. Using the exciton wave functions obtained by the variational method, the exciton-exciton interaction is calculated and found to be repulsive when the thickness of the QW is thinner than a critical value. To illustrate the situation, we carry out the numerical computation adopting a model system with material constants appropriate to GaAs/AlAs type-II QW's. The basic equation for the phase of the condensate wave function is derived when the exciton system is irradiated by a weak laser light at zero temperature. Solving the equation in the presence of the external current Jex,{J}_{\mathrm{ex}},Jex​, we study the stationary spatial pattern of the phase of the condensate wave function. It is shown that there appears a vortex lattice with a net supercurrent when Jex{J}_{\mathrm{ex}}Jex​ is larger than a critical value; the period of the lattice is determined as a function of Jex.{J}_{\mathrm{ex}}.Jex​. We calculate the magnetic field induced by the current in the vortex lattice, and discuss a possibility of an experimental observation of the critical current. Such a direct observation of the exciton transport will provide unambiguous experimental evidence for the superfluidity of excitons.
Photo-excited excitons, i.e. closely bound electron-hole pairs, are in the low-density regime approximately bosons. For sufficiently low temperatures and sufficiently high densities of the exciton gas, a nonequilibrium phase transition in the form of a Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) can be expected. Various levels of the description of the kinetics of relaxation and condensation due to the coupling of the excitons to a cold reservoir of acoustic phonons are discussed. For noninteracting excitons a rate equation approach with the exciton Boltzmann equation can be used. For interacting excitons the nonmarkovian quantum kinetics is required for the description of the BEC in order to incorporate the changes of the energy spectrum during the condensation self-consistently. Finally colored Langevin fluctuations can be used to calculate the phase diffusion of the condensate.