Physical Review B
Control of excitonic population inversion in a coupled semiconductor quantum dot–metal nanoparticle system
Emmanuel Paspalakis, Sofia Evangelou, Andreas Terzis
Abstract
We study the potential for controlled population inversion in a coupled system comprised of a semiconductor quantum dot and a metal nanoparticle. We show that the widely used method of population inversion by a $\ensuremath{\pi}$ pulse can be modified for small interparticle distances. This modification depends strongly on the pulse duration. We also present analytical solutions of the nonlinear density matrix equations, for specific pulse envelopes, which lead to efficient excitonic population inversion in the quantum dot for several distances between the semiconductor quantum dot and the metal nanoparticle.