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CRC Press eBooks

Electromagnetically Induced Transparency in Semiconductor Quantum Wells

Mark C. Phillips, Hailin Wang

Published Oct 3, 2018• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

This chapter discusses advantage of the many-body Coulomb interactions to generate and manipulate nonradiative quantum coherences. It describes theoretically, the manifestation and behavior of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) processes in transient regimes. The chapter also discusses experimental demonstrations of EIT using excitons in gallium arsenide quantum-well structures. It shows that many-body Coulomb interactions between excitons can be exploited for the generation and manipulation of exciton spin coherence and biexciton coherence. The chapter provides the similarities and especially the essential differences in EIT processes between atomic and excitonic systems. It focuses on the changes in the absorption spectrum induced by EIT; these changes are also accompanied by corresponding changes in the refractive index. The absorption spectrum features a distinct EIT dip similar to that observed for cw excitations. The experimental setup for transient EIT studies was based on a standard transient pump-probe configuration, but with different pump and probe pulse durations.

DOI
10.1201/9781420027259-8

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This chapter discusses advantage of the many-body Coulomb interactions to generate and manipulate nonradiative quantum coherences. It describes theoretically, the manifestation and behavior of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) processes in transient regimes. The chapter also discusses experimental demonstrations of EIT using excitons in gallium arsenide quantum-well structures. It shows that many-body Coulomb interactions between excitons can be exploited for the generation and manipulation of exciton spin coherence and biexciton coherence. The chapter provides the similarities and especially the essential differences in EIT processes between atomic and excitonic systems. It focuses on the changes in the absorption spectrum induced by EIT; these changes are also accompanied by corresponding changes in the refractive index. The absorption spectrum features a distinct EIT dip similar to that observed for cw excitations. The experimental setup for transient EIT studies was based on a standard transient pump-probe configuration, but with different pump and probe pulse durations.
We report experimental studies of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) arising from exciton spin coherence in the transient optical response of GaAs quantum wells. The exciton spin coherence, which is a direct result of Coulomb correlations between excitons with opposite spins, is induced via bound or unbound two-exciton states. Theoretical analyses based on a three-level model illustrate the manifestation of EIT in a transient regime and provide qualitative guidance for understanding the transient behaviors observed in the EIT experiments. Additional studies of the effects of exciton energy renormalization on optical Stark splitting also provide insights on how exciton many-body interactions can lead to unusual time-dependent asymmetric EIT line shapes.
In this paper, we review our recent experimental studies on electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) from electron spin coherences in semiconductor quantum wells. Coherent Raman resonances, manifestations of EIT from electron spin coherences at relatively low pump intensities, were demonstrated in both V-type and Λ-type three-level systems via heavy-hole exciton and trion transitions in undoped and doped quantum wells, respectively. Coherent Raman resonances from electron spin coherences via light-hole transitions were also demonstrated in a waveguide geometry that enables a long optical interaction length as well as a large absorption coefficient. Experimental approaches that can avoid or reduce detrimental many-body effects in quantum wells are suggested for the realization of nearly ideal EIT processes.
We report an experimental demonstration and theoretical analysis of electromagnetically induced transparency in a GaAs quantum well, in which the absorption of an exciton resonance is reduced by more than twentyfold. The destructive quantum interference in this scheme is set up by a control pulse that couples to a resonance of biexcitons. These studies illustrate that many-particle interactions, which are inherent in semiconductors and are often detrimental to quantum coherences, can also be harnessed to manipulate these coherences.
Optically induced coherences reveal key features of nonlinearities in the optical response of semiconductors and can be employed to obtain information about dynamical processes via such techniques as transient four-wave mixing and differential transmission. This thesis presents experimental observations of three previously unrecognized aspects of coherent nonlinear optical phenomena occurring in gallium arsenide and multiple quantum wells: excitation-induced dephasing, two-photon biexcitonic coherence, and electronic Raman coherence. Results are analyzed using optical Bloch equations, which emphasize the potential generalization to other semiconductor systems. Excitation-induced dephasing is similar to classical line broadening. The work in this thesis shows for the first time that this incoherent effect is directly responsible for the dominant coherent optical nonlinearity in bulk gallium arsenide. Exact analytic models show that excitation-induced dephasing accounts for the previously unexplained polarization and density dependence of four-wave mixing signals obtained at the 1s exciton resonances in gallium arsenide. This thesis also presents the first observation of the two-photon biexcitonic coherence in a gallium arsenide multiple quantum well using a modified Michelson phase-conjugate interferometer to directly observe the 770-Terahertz oscillation of the nonradiative superposition of the electronic ground state and the biexciton state. The contribution of the two-photon coherence to the nonlinear optical response is thereby confirmed, in addition to the well-known stepwise biexcitonic response. Finally, the short-lived electronic Raman coherence between the light- and heavy-hole 1s excitons in gallium arsenide is conclusively demonstrated for the first time. The Raman coherence provides direct access to dephasing processes not detectable in conventional linear spectroscopy. Similar non-radiative coherences are related to population trapping, electromagnetically induced transparency, and lasing without inversion in atomic systems, and the new observations in gallium arsenide suggest that analogous phenomena may occur in semiconductors.
This paper explores quantum-coherence phenomena in a semiconductor quantum-dot structure. The calculations predict the occurrence of inversionless gain, electromagnetically induced transparency, and refractive-index enhancement in the transient regime for dephasing rates typical under room temperature and high excitation conditions. They also indicate deviations from atomic systems because of strong many-body effects. Specifically, Coulomb interaction involving states of the quantum dots and the continuum belonging to the surrounding quantum well leads to collision-induced population redistribution and many-body energy and field renormalizations that modify the magnitude, spectral shape, and time dependence of quantum-coherence effects.