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Physical review. B, Condensed matter

Time-convolutionless reduced-density-operator theory of an arbitrary driven system coupled to a stochastic reservoir. II. Optical gain and line-shape function of a driven semiconductor

Doyeol Ahn

Published Jan 15, 1995• 32 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In this paper, recently developed time-convolutionless quantum-kinetic equations for electron-hole pairs near the band edge are used to derive the optical gain and the line-shape function of a driven semiconductor taking into account excitonic effects. The equation of motion for the interband pair amplitude is integrated directly assuming the quasiequilibrium or adiabatic approximation. It is shown that the line shape of the optical-gain spectra is Gaussian for the simplest non-Markovian quantum kinetics. On the other hand, the line-shape function becomes Lorentzian, which has been assumed in most practical calculations, in the Markovian limit. It is also shown that the optical gain is enhanced by (1) excitonic effects caused by the attractive electron-hole Coulomb interaction and (2) interference effects (or renormalized memory effects) between the external driving field and the stochastic reservoir of the system. Gain enhancement by the memory effects can be interpreted as the result of the violation of energy conservation on the time scale shorter than the correlation time.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.51.2159

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In this paper, recently developed time-convolutionless quantum-kinetic equations for electron-hole pairs near the band edge are used to derive the optical gain and the line-shape function of a driven semiconductor taking into account excitonic effects. The equation of motion for the interband pair amplitude is integrated directly assuming the quasiequilibrium or adiabatic approximation. It is shown that the line shape of the optical-gain spectra is Gaussian for the simplest non-Markovian quantum kinetics. On the other hand, the line-shape function becomes Lorentzian, which has been assumed in most practical calculations, in the Markovian limit. It is also shown that the optical gain is enhanced by (1) excitonic effects caused by the attractive electron-hole Coulomb interaction and (2) interference effects (or renormalized memory effects) between the external driving field and the stochastic reservoir of the system. Gain enhancement by the memory effects can be interpreted as the result of the violation of energy conservation on the time scale shorter than the correlation time.
The availability of femtosecond pulses in the optical-frequency regime allows the study of coherent effects in the interaction between semiconductors and light. Because the properties of the exciting pulses become important ingredients in spectroscopy, the theoretical analysis must treat the complete time dependence of the system. For this purpose we use the semiconductor Bloch equations (SBE),1-3 which are the coupled equations of motion for the interband polarization and the electron and hole populations for an interacting electron-hole system in the random-phase approximation. The equations describe the electron-hole Coulomb attraction leading to excitonic features; they contain phasespace filling and band-gap renormalization effects, as well as the dipole interaction with the applied light field.
This dissertation addresses both fundamental aspects of the coherent exciton kinetics in single semiconductor quantum wells and more application-oriented aspects of the collective excitonic optical properties in quantum well Bragg structures. We use a bosonic theory to investigate the ultrafast coherent exciton dynamics after an optical excitation in a single semiconductor quantum well. It is shown that, on intermediate time scales, nonlinear mean-field interactions between excitons lead to a coherent, wave-like evolution in the momentum distribution of optically inactive excitons, which can survive for some time before dephasing sets in. Driven by two-exciton correlations, this coherent quantum kinetic effect bridges the well-known kinetics associated with optical excitation on the one hand and incoherent relaxation on the other. We also study more general dynamical properties of bosonic mean field systems with N-species of excitons (in a single semiconductor quantum well). We find that the momentum-conserving exciton mean field equations, including the coupling to external fields and fermionic corrections, have the dynamical structure su(N,N). We show that one can define a non-real generalized "Bloch vector" and a non-hermitian "density matrix" description, which allow us to explicitly obtain all the constants of motion associated with the su(N,N) symmetry. The many-body effects and correlations of excitons in a single quantum well are mainly induced by the Coulomb interactions. In the case of a semiconductor quantum well Bragg structure, the light induced coupling between different quantum wells also dramatically affects the excitons' behavior, especially through the collective excitations of excitons in the whole structure. We investigate the linear excitonic optical properties of the quantum well Bragg structure induced by the collective excitations using the transfer matrix approach. We show that the so called "intermediate band" (IB) created by the exciton resonance, which does not exist in conventional photonic crystals, can be used for the stopping, storing and releasing of light, which is important in information processing devices. We also discuss the compensation of the dispersive distortion in the light delay process through reversing the IB band structure. Other conceptual and practical issues such as the decay rate of the IB modes and the generalized anti-reflection coating are also investigated.
We study the dynamics of open quantum systems driven by an external time-periodic force. Combining Floquet theory and the time-convolutionless projection operator technique we derive a time-local quantum master equation which exactly takes into account the periodic driving, while treating the system-environment interaction within second order in the coupling strength without performing the Markov approximation. The resulting equation of motion for the reduced density matrix is called Floquet time-convolutionless master equation. Employing the example of the driven spin-boson system, we demonstrate that this master equation is capable of describing strong non-Markovian effects, while yielding the Floquet-Lindblad master equation in the Markovian limit. A characteristic feature of memory effects in such driven dissipative systems is the emergence of sharp peaks of the trace-distance based non-Markovianity measure as a function of the driving amplitude, which can be traced back to quasienergy crossings leading to almost decoherence-protected subspaces through a quasienergy-induced dissipative decoupling mechanism.
We develop a heirarchy of equations that describes the electrodynamics of the semiconductor band edge. An exciton basis that incorporates intrapair Coulomb interaction is used. The excitons are treated as quasibosons that satisfy commutation relations intermediate between bosonic and fermionic. Their nonlinear dynamics are a consequence of phase-space filling and an effective exciton-exciton interaction that depends only on their center-of-mass wave vectors and internal quantum numbers. The resulting expansion in powers of the optical field is analogous to Axt and Stahl's dynamically controlled truncation, but takes a simpler form. If damping is omitted or if all interband and intraband dephasing time constants are the same, we find a set of relationships among the interband and intraband correlation functions which in the free pair basis give the semiconductor Bloch equations.
A generalized Bloch-Maxwell formulation for laser-field-coupled semiconductors is derived from a two-band model which includes direct Coulomb interactions. The momentum-dependent, microscopic, electron-hole equations of motion in the time-dependent Hartree-Fock approximation and neglecting interband exchange interactions form the starting point for the formulation. A self-consistent set of coupled equations in four dynamical variables for the medium, together with the electric-field amplitude coupled through the Maxwell wave equation in a semiclassical approximation, are obtained to lowest order in the coherent Coulomb exchange interaction and the density-of-states distribution. Intrinsic optical bistability is predicted in a steady state due to a carrier density-dependent redshift of the band edge due explicitly to coherent Coulomb exchange. Integration of the dynamical equations for conditions which correspond to the ultrafast time regime exhibit intrinsic adiabatic inversion, adiabatic following, anomalous Rabi cycling, and unique, as well as fast, optical switching, all of which depend upon the coherent Coulomb exchange interaction.
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.