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Cambridge University Press eBooks

The Optical Stark Effect and the Virtual Bose Condensate

S. A. Moskalenko, David W. Snoke

Published Feb 28, 2000• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Nonequilibrium Theory of the Optical Stark Effect in the Excitonic Range of the Spectrum One of the most important applications of the theory of Bose condensation of excitons is the optical Stark effect, or “AC Stark effect, ” first demonstrated for excitons in Cu 2 O [1] and since seen in several semiconductors and semiconductor heterostructures (e.g., Refs. 2-5). This effect is a promising tool for the field of optical communications. One of the major interests in this field is the development of all-optical-switching methods, by which light signals are switched on or off directly by other light signals, just as in electronics, electrical signals switch other electrical signals. At the present, most optical communications systems use electrical signals (e.g., electro-optic or acousto-optic devices) to switch the light signals, which means that the limiting bandwidth of the system is controlled by that of the electrical signals, not the optical bandwidth. The optical Stark effect offers this possibility. When one laser beam impinges on a sample, it can drastically alter the excitonic absorption line shape. Therefore a second beam can see either a transparent or an absorbing medium, depending on the presence of the control beam. This is the optical equivalent of a transistor. The basic effect is shown in Fig. 6.1. When an intense laser is tuned to a photon energy that is just below the excitonic ground state, the exciton ground state is shifted in frequency and the oscillator strength is altered. This leads to a strong reduction in the optical absorption at the original wavelength of the exciton ground state.

DOI
10.1017/cbo9780511721687.007

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Introduction. Polaritons and Semiconductor Microcavities As we have mentioned previously, BEC of excitons or biexcitons and lasing can be seen as two limits of the same theory. Lasing occurs in the case of strong electron-photon coupling (recombination rate fast compared with interparticle-scattering rate) while excitonic BEC occurs in the case of weak electron-photon coupling (recombination rate slow compared with the interparticle-scattering rate.) A laser can be seen as a Bose condensate in which the long-range phase coherence exists in the photon states [1], while in the exciton condensate the coherence exists in the electronic states. This is one of the reasons for some of the confusing debates in the early history of excitonic Bose condensation – in many systems there is not a sharp distinction between an excitonic condensate and supperradiance, i.e., luminescence with enhanced intensity due to stimulated emission [2-4]. In the previous chapters, we have so far considered a laser light source only as a source of excitons by means of quantum transitions. In Chapter 6, the laser radiation was taken into account as a given external factor. This chapter is dedicated to phenomena related to a strong and noticeable exciton-photon interaction, when the light significantly influences the energy spectrum of the high-density excitons [5-9]. As we will see, this leads to many fascinating effects related to instabilities. A strong exciton-photon interaction implies a strong polariton effect, in which photon and exciton states are mixed (as in Fig. 1.3). When this mixing is strong, it is not obvious how to define the ground state of the system.

Cambridge University Press eBooks•Feb 28, 2000•1 citation
Nonequilibrium Theory of the Optical Stark Effect in the Excitonic Range of the Spectrum One of the most important applications of the theory of Bose condensation of excitons is the optical Stark effect, or “AC Stark effect, ” first demonstrated for excitons in Cu 2 O [1] and since seen in several semiconductors and semiconductor heterostructures (e.g., Refs. 2-5). This effect is a promising tool for the field of optical communications. One of the major interests in this field is the development of all-optical-switching methods, by which light signals are switched on or off directly by other light signals, just as in electronics, electrical signals switch other electrical signals. At the present, most optical communications systems use electrical signals (e.g., electro-optic or acousto-optic devices) to switch the light signals, which means that the limiting bandwidth of the system is controlled by that of the electrical signals, not the optical bandwidth. The optical Stark effect offers this possibility. When one laser beam impinges on a sample, it can drastically alter the excitonic absorption line shape. Therefore a second beam can see either a transparent or an absorbing medium, depending on the presence of the control beam. This is the optical equivalent of a transistor. The basic effect is shown in Fig. 6.1. When an intense laser is tuned to a photon energy that is just below the excitonic ground state, the exciton ground state is shifted in frequency and the oscillator strength is altered. This leads to a strong reduction in the optical absorption at the original wavelength of the exciton ground state.
This Letter presents for the first time the observation of the resonant optical Stark effect in a semiconductor. The excitonic system of Cu2{\mathrm{Cu}}_{2}Cu2​O is well suited to the investigation of this effect because of its rather large binding energy and well-resolved resonances at low temperatures. The mixing between the 1S1S1S and 2P2P2P excitons by the electric field of a tunable high-power CO2{\mathrm{O}}_{2}O2​ laser leads to drastic changes in the one-photon spectrum around the 2P2P2P absorption line. Even details of the line shape are consistently described in terms of the frequency-dependent nonlinear susceptibility.
Irradiation of a medium with non-resonant light leads to a shift of the energy levels in the system. This optical, or dynamical Stark effect has been studied for many years in atomic gases. It is only recently, however, that it could be detected for excitonic transitions in solids. This development has stirred considerable interest, because the optical Stark effect has inherent features which makes it well suited for applications such as in ultrafast all-optical data processing. Since the pump light beam falls in a transparency region of the medium, it experiences little loss, in contrast to optical non-linearities based on a saturation mechanism. Also, because virtual transitions are involved, the light-induced shift of exciton levels follows closely the pump pulse duration, making it possible to design ultrafast all-optical logic gates with subpicosecond switch-on and -off times.
Summary form only given. In the excitonic ac Stark shift in quantum wells the excitonic absorption line is blueshifted by shining on the sample an intense laser pulse, whose frequency is lower than the exciton transition frequency. The effect is bigger when the laser spectrum approaches the resonance with the excitonic absorption. But if the laser and excitonic absorption spectra sensibly overlap, a great amount of electronic population is excited and consequently the Coulomb nonlinearities due to the interaction between excited carries or excitons dramatically increase. One prominent effect under these conditions is the excitation- induced dephasing which can destroy the coherence of the electronic system and therefore the coupling between excitons and light, which is inherently coherent. Some evidence for the resonant Stark effect was already reported, but the direct observation of the spectral splitting was still missing. This observation demonstrates that the coherent exciton light coupling in semiconductors can be strong enough to survive the fast dephasing, and that therefore an efficient ultrafast manipulation of the exciton absorption in the coherent transient is possible. In order to magnify the ac Stark effect and its visibility a special sample was designed: a single In/sub 0.04/Ga/sub 0.96/As quantum well is grown on the top of an AlAs/AlGaAs distributed Bragg reflector; two /spl lambda//2 spacers separate the quantum well from the mirror and from the air. In this configuration the light field incident on the sample and the one reflected by the mirror constructively interfere at the quantum well position, giving a high effective absorption.
The theory of the optical Stark effect is developed for quantum-size structures. The effect is due to the interaction of the electron system with intense light, whose frequency, (omega) , is in resonance between two subbands in the conduction band. The probe light of the frequency (Omega) falls in resonance with the adjacent transition between the ground state and the state with an electron-hole pair. In the quasi-steady-state mode, the singularities in the interband (Omega) -light absorption spectra are related to the critical points of the bands, rearranged by the (omega) - light. The shape of the higher conduction band can be evaluated from the spectral positions of the singularities. In the case of two-photon interband transitions, a sharp dependence of the absorption on the light intensity is predicted. In the non-steady-state mode, the probe beam consists of two femtosecond (Omega) -light pulses following each other with the delay time, (tau) d. The dependence of energy, absorbed from the second pulse, on the (tau) d value is calculated. Under the (omega) -pumping, one of the two phenomena should be observed, depending on the type of band structure, namely, the decay of the induced polarization with the characteristic time approximately 1/(omega) R or oscillations with the frequency approximately (omega) R, where (omega) R is the Rabi frequency. The principal effect, controlling the decay of the Rabi oscillations, is the spreading of the packet of states generated by the (Omega) -light pulse.
We examine the absorption and amplification bands of a weak probe signal in the presence of Bose-Einstein condensation of excitons that emerges in nonequilibrium conditions in the field of coherent laser radiation with a wave vector k 0. We assume that the detuning Δ~\tilde \Delta Δ~ from resonance between the energy ħω ex (k 0)+L 0 of the exciton level, which is shifted because of exciton-exciton interaction, and the laser photon energy ħω L , is generally nonzero. The elementary excitation spectrum consisting of the quasiexcitonic and quasienergy branches determines the optical properties of the system. When there is real induced Bose-Einstein condensation, at Δ~=0\tilde \Delta = 0Δ~=0 the two branches touch, as they do in spontaneous Bose-Einstein condensation. In virtual induced Bose-Einstein condensation, when Δ~<0\tilde \Delta < 0Δ~<0 , instabilities emerge in the spectrum in certain regions of the k-space. These instabilities are caused by a real transformation of two laser photons into two extracondensate particles. Nonequilibrium extracondensate excitons strongly affect the absorption and amplification of the probe light signal. We show that light absorption is due to the quantum transition from the ground state of the crystal to the quasiexcitonic branch of the spectrum. On the other hand, amplification of the signal is caused by the transition from the quasienergy branch to the ground state of the crystal. The same transition can be explained by a real transformation of two laser photons into a vacuum photon of frequency ħcq and a crystal exciton with a wave vector 2k 0−q. Finally, we show that the excitonic absorption and light-amplification bands are essentially anisotropic at Δ~≈0\tilde \Delta \approx 0Δ~≈0 and depend on the orientation of the vectors q and k 0.
Introduction. Polaritons and Semiconductor Microcavities As we have mentioned previously, BEC of excitons or biexcitons and lasing can be seen as two limits of the same theory. Lasing occurs in the case of strong electron-photon coupling (recombination rate fast compared with interparticle-scattering rate) while excitonic BEC occurs in the case of weak electron-photon coupling (recombination rate slow compared with the interparticle-scattering rate.) A laser can be seen as a Bose condensate in which the long-range phase coherence exists in the photon states [1], while in the exciton condensate the coherence exists in the electronic states. This is one of the reasons for some of the confusing debates in the early history of excitonic Bose condensation – in many systems there is not a sharp distinction between an excitonic condensate and supperradiance, i.e., luminescence with enhanced intensity due to stimulated emission [2-4]. In the previous chapters, we have so far considered a laser light source only as a source of excitons by means of quantum transitions. In Chapter 6, the laser radiation was taken into account as a given external factor. This chapter is dedicated to phenomena related to a strong and noticeable exciton-photon interaction, when the light significantly influences the energy spectrum of the high-density excitons [5-9]. As we will see, this leads to many fascinating effects related to instabilities. A strong exciton-photon interaction implies a strong polariton effect, in which photon and exciton states are mixed (as in Fig. 1.3). When this mixing is strong, it is not obvious how to define the ground state of the system.