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Quantum Electronics and Laser Science Conference

Ultrafast optical Stark-effect switching and memory actions pumped by transient coherent pulses

Kenji Wada, Hiromichi Horinaka, Nobuyuki Yamamoto, Yoshio Cho

Published May 12, 1991• 0 citations
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Abstract

Since the first experimental demonstrations1,2 of the ultrafast optical Stark effect (OSE) on GaAs-AlGaAs multiple-quantum-well (MQW) excitons, OSE has been attracting investigators' interest because of its potential capability for ultrafast all-optical switching devices. Extensive theoretical3,4 and experimental5 studies were reported heretofore. Recently, however, it has also been recognized that the real excitation inevitably excited by the pump pulse limits the switching repetition speed owing to its long level lifetime (in the nanosecond range).

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•May 21, 1990•0 citations
Since the first experimental demonstrations1,2 of the ultrafast optical Stark effect (OSE) on GaAs-AlGaAs multiple-quantum-well (MQW) excitons, OSE has been attracting investigators' interest because of its potential capability for ultrafast all-optical switching devices. Extensive theoretical3,4 and experimental5 studies were reported heretofore. Recently, however, it has also been recognized that the real excitation inevitably excited by the pump pulse limits the switching repetition speed owing to its long level lifetime (in the nanosecond range).
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.
A comprehensive numerical study of the optical Stark effect and associated phenomena in semiconductors is presented. The results are obtained from numerical solutions of the full semiconductor Bloch equations for bulk and quantum-well structures. Coherent oscillations, the optical Stark effect, and adiabatic following, i.e., ultrafast bleaching and recovery of the exciton, are discussed. The relative importance of the different contributions in the semiconductor Bloch equations is identified. Optical-absorption spectra are computed for different exciton dephasing models and a large variety of pump-probe excitation parameters.
Excitonic resonances in direct-gap semiconductors have proved to exhibit similar optical non-linearities as in atoms. One example is the optical Stark effect [1] which occurs when the sample is excited by a strong pump field whose frequency is detuned from the optical transition. The optical Stark effect has been described as a coupling between the electromagnetic field and the resonance with no real absorption. It can also be seen as the creation of a virtual population in the excited state. A transient gain, quadratic in pump intensity, is associated to this effect as already observed in atomic systems [2]. This hyper-Raman process involves two pump photons and occurs at frequency 2ω p – ω0, where ω p and ω0 are the pump and atomic transition frequencies, respectively (see inset of Fig. 1).
Recent works in the area of ultrafast nonlinearities due to virtual carriers in semiconductor heterostructures have generated significant interest among researchers. It has been shown that excitons in QW's behave very much like conventional two-level atoms, to the extent that exciton-exciton interaction can be neglected. Therefore, fast coherent phenomena usually associated with two-level system may occur in excitonic QW transitions. Indeed, dynamic (AC) Stark effect in QW's have been demonstrated. When semiconductor QW's were pumped below the absorption edge there were a strong "blue" shift of the exciton resonance, accompanied by a strong bleaching.
The optical Stark effect of excitons in semiconductors, where the exciton resonance is blue shifted by an off-resonance light beam, has been actively studied. Here we report on the observation of a very fast recovery of the exciton bleaching for an off-resonance excitation condition in a quantum well sample at room temperature. The good agreement between the experimental results and our numerical calculations of the time-resolved absorption spectra suggests a coherent transient population buildup and decay occurring on the time scale of the pump pulse.