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Quantum Electronics and Laser Science Conference

Optical coherent control in semiconductors

John Erland, Vadim G. Lyssenko, J. M. Hvam

Published Nov 13, 2002• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Summary form only given. The developments with coherent control (CC) techniques in optical spectroscopy have recently demonstrated population control and coherence manipulations when the induced optical phase is explored with phase-locked laser pulses. These and other developments have been guiding the new research field of quantum control including the recent applications to semiconductors and nanostructures. We study the influence of inhomogeneous broadening in semiconductors on CC results. Photoluminescence (PL) and the coherent emission in four-wave mixing (FWM) is recorded after resonant excitation with phase-locked laser pulses. The sample is a narrow GaAs single quantum well.

DOI
10.1109/qels.2001.962055

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Summary form only given. The developments with coherent control (CC) techniques in optical spectroscopy have recently demonstrated population control and coherence manipulations when the induced optical phase is explored with phase-locked laser pulses. These and other developments have been guiding the new research field of quantum control including the recent applications to semiconductors and nanostructures. We study the influence of inhomogeneous broadening in semiconductors on CC results. Photoluminescence (PL) and the coherent emission in four-wave mixing (FWM) is recorded after resonant excitation with phase-locked laser pulses. The sample is a narrow GaAs single quantum well.
Optical coherent control experiments in semiconductors reveal how inhomogeneous broadening must be taken into account in contrast to previous coherent control experiments in atomic and molecular systems. With spectral resolution of the coherent control signal, the optical phases involved in the interplay between the homogeneous and inhomogeneous broadenings are measured. Based on these experiments, a coherent control model describing the optical fringe contrast using different detection schemes, such as photoluminescence or four-wave mixing, is established. Significant spectral modulation is observed in the four-wave mixing spectra as a function of phase-delay representing coherent control in the spectral domain. The spectral phase change of this modulation provides a spectroscopic tool to analyze contributions of inhomogeneous broadening to electronic resonances in semiconductor structures.
Summary form only given.We report on a general approach to coherent control in semiconductors, based on optical waveforms with synthesized intensity and phase versus time. This technique is limited only by the bandwidth of the initial laser pulses and the spectral resolution of the pulse-shaping apparatus. It is therefore especially suitable to investigate effects such as off-resonant Rabi oscillations and polaritons in multiple quantum wells. Experiments were performed in four-wave mixing (FWM) and differential reflection geometry based on a mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser emitting 100-fs pulses.
Summary form only given. The coherence decay of optically excited electronic systems provides one of the most powerful tools to investigate interaction processes of excited states. In semiconductors, the optical coherence phenomena are usually investigated by nonlinear techniques such as four wave mixing (FWM), photon echo, or reflectivity experiments. Exciton-phonon, exciton-exciton, or exciton-free carriers scattering processes have been explored in recent years with these techniques. As demonstrated recently, a direct measurement of the optical dephasing time can be obtained through the temporal coherent control of electronic excitations. In these experiments, the emission following the excitation by an ultrashort optical pulse sequence, is detected in a non-specular direction (secondary emission). This provides an alternative approach to FWM techniques, which allows us to analyse the scattering processes either with phonons or due to mutual collisions. Using the coherent control technique monitored through the secondary emission (SE), we report on the coherent dynamics of excitons in bare quantum wells (QW) and compare it to that of exciton-polaritons in microcavity (MC) embedded quantum wells.
Summary form only given.The coherent response of excitons in semiconductor nanostructures, as measured in four wave mixing (FWM) experiments, depends strongly on the inhomogeneous broadening of the exciton transition. We investigate GaAs-AlGaAs single quantum wells (SQW) of 4 nm to 25 nm well width. Two main mechanisms are found to be important. First, the excitation-induced dephasing FWM signal (EID), which leads to a strong dependence of the signal on the angle between the linear input polarizations. The presence of the EID in the mainly homogeneously broadened sample (25 nm) is shown by the beating between EID and two-photon coherence (TPC) at the exciton for negative delay and co-linear polarized excitation. It vanishes for cross-polarized excitation, thus excluding the importance of local-field effects.
Current issues in the study of light-matter interactions are coherence and quantum interference. With ultrafast nonlinear spectroscopy such as transient four-wave mixing (TFWM) the imposed coherence on the optical excitations in e.g. GaAs multiple quantum wells has been studied. In this contribution, we study the influence of inhomogeneous broadening on quantum beats observed by spectrally resolved TFWM. In artificially grown semiconductor structures as e.g. quantum wells, inhomogeneities due to interface-disorder has, up till now, been inevitable. In the experiments, the light-hole exciton (lhx) and the heavy-hole exciton (hhx) in a 100 Å GaAs multiple quantum well are excited simultaneously with 150 fs pulses from a self mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser. The spectral profile is shown in the inset of Fig. 1.
Our recent work on optical two-dimensional coherent spectroscopy (2DCS) of semiconductor materials is reviewed. We present and compare two approaches that are appropriate for the study of semiconductor nanostructures. The first one is based on a non-collinear geometry, where the Four-Wave-Mixing (FWM) signal is detected in the form of a radiated optical field. This approach works for samples with translational symmetry, such as Quantum Wells (QWs), or large and dense ensembles of Quantum Dots (QDs). The second method is based on a collinear geometry, where the FWM is detected in the form of a photocurrent. This second approach enables 2DCS of samples where translational symmetry is broken, such as single QDs, nanowires, or nanotubes, and small ensembles thereof. For each method, we provide an example of experimental results obtained on semiconductor QWs. In particular, it is shown how 2DCS can reveal coherent excitonic coupling between adjacent QWs.