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Nonlinear Optics

Nonlinear cw Pump-Probe Investigations for Semiconductor Microcavities Exhibiting Normal-Mode Coupling

T. R. Nelson, G. Khitrova, Eric K. Lindmark, David Wick, Jill D. Berger, H. M. Gibbs, Kuochou Tai, Y. Lai

Published Jan 1, 1996• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Normal-mode coupling (NMC) or vacuum-field Rabi splitting has been studied for many years. Early experiments used many atoms or even a single atom in a high finesse cavity. Recent observations of NMC in semiconductor microcavities [1] have led to a flurry of investigations. We present here the results of high excitation cw pump-probe experiments which show a new nonlinear behavior, in which the transmission of the two NMC peaks disappears with no appreciable change in NMC splitting.

DOI
10.1364/nlo.1996.nthe.15

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Normal-mode coupling (NMC) or vacuum-field Rabi splitting has been studied for many years. Early experiments used many atoms or even a single atom in a high finesse cavity. Recent observations of NMC in semiconductor microcavities [1] have led to a flurry of investigations. We present here the results of high excitation cw pump-probe experiments which show a new nonlinear behavior, in which the transmission of the two NMC peaks disappears with no appreciable change in NMC splitting.
Nonlinear optical phenomena in both semiconductor microcavities and sodium vapor are investigated. Systems displaying atomic and excitonic coupling are studied in detail in order to unravel underlying physical principles. Possible applications for these systems are evaluated where appropriate. Normal-mode coupling (NMC) in a semiconductor microcavity is achieved when a narrow-linewidth quantum well exciton resonance is coincident with the cavity mode of a high-finesse microcavity. This interaction leads to a double-peaked spectrum in either transmission, reflection, or photoluminescence (PL). The high-quality microcavities studied here at liquid-Helium temperatures reveal intensity dependent behavior that has not previously been observed. Nonlinear saturation of the exciton leads to a spectral broadening of the excitonic absorption without a significant loss in oscillator strength. This results in a reduction of the two transmission peaks with almost no change in the splitting between the peaks. Such behavior is easily explained using phenomenological nonlinear dispersion theory. In this nonlinear regime, the luminescence from the microcavity shows a gradual transition from the nonperturbative regime of NMC to lasing with increasing excitation. The observed behavior is explained by density-dependent changes in both the transmission of the microcavity and the bare-exciton emission, rather than a boson-condensation of excitons which has been previously proposed. An intermediate-finesse microcavity also modifies the emission distribution from a bulk-semiconductor at room temperature. Angularly resolved emission spectra and quantum efficiency measurements show the PL is strongly dependent on the reflectivity of the microcavity. Unfortunately, the enhancement in the decay rate of excitons due to high-reflectivity mirrors seen previously by our group does not result in an increased quantum efficiency. High-gain optical-wavefront amplification in atomic sodium vapor is demonstrated via both the three-photon effect and stimulated Raman scattering (SRS). In both cases, single-pass weak-field gain of nearly 400 is achieved with only 800 mW of pump power near 589 nm. In the case of SRS, phase preservation of the amplified wavefront, which is necessary in adaptive imaging applications, is also demonstrated.
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Recent progress in vertical surface-emitting-laser-diode technology has raised considerable interest in cavity-QED effects in high-quality vertical semiconductor microcavities. When an excitonic transition and a single cavity mode are strongly coupled, the normal modes of the system are coupled modes split by the vacuum-Rabi frequency, corresponding in the time domain to an oscillation of the excitation between modes of exciton and photon character. Recently, the vacuum-Rabi splitting and preliminary observations of time-domain oscillation in semiconductor quantum microcavities have been reported.1,2 In this paper we investigate rigorously the time-domain vacuum-Rabi oscillation by femtosecond upconversion and pump-probe techniques.
Recently, several research groups have reported investigations of vacuum-field Rabi splittings (VRS) in the linear response of strongly coupled semiconductor microcavities [1-4]. We have previously reported on the dynamics of time-domain vacuum Rabi oscillations, which are most easily understood in the framework of cavity exciton-polaritons, in which the in-plane momentum k|| is conserved [2], so that at each k|| a single cavity mode interacts with only a single mode of the electromagnetic field (Jaynes-Cummings model). In high Q semiconductor microcavities, the strong coupling between two-dimensional excitons and planar distributed- Bragg-reflector cavity modes results in several-meV splittings observable in the reflectivity or absorption spectrum. In the low excitation regime, the VRS is independent of light intensity incident on the cavity, since the vacuum-Rabi frequency exceeds the externally-driven Rabi frequency (in which case the Jaynes-Cummings model is equivalent to the linear dispersion of the coupled exciton-cavity system). As the incident light intensity is increased, two different effects may be expected to contribute to the nonlinear response. First, as long as the excitonic absorption is equivalent to a two-level system, higher-lying states of the Jaynes-Cummings ladder might be observable. Second, at high intensity phase-space filling and Coulomb screening of the exciton states results in a reduced oscillator strength which leads to a reduced VRS; this effect has no analogue in the case of atom-cavity systems. In this paper, we apply several ultrafast nonlinear techniques to investigate the nonlinear response of semiconductor microcavities.
Recently, cavity quantum electrodynamic (QED) effects in semiconductor microcavities have been of considerable interest since, in the weak-coupling regime they play an important role in selectively increasing spontaneous emission into the lasing mode of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSEL’s) [1,2], enabling low-threshold, high speed, and high efficiency. In a strong-coupling regime, the normal modes of the coupled system are superpositions of the exciton and cavity modes. Hence the impulsively excited system will evolve in time with the energy oscillating between the exciton and cavity modes. This is known as a vacuum-Rabi oscillation (VRO), with a frequency of Ω=d¯⋅E¯/@@h, where d¯ is the transition dipole moment of atoms and E¯ the vacuum-field strength. Of course, VRO are observable only when the cavity lifetime and exciton dephasing time are long enough compared to VRO period. Recently, Weisbuch et al. [3] have reported an observation of the normal-mode vacuum Rabi splitting in 2-D-exciton/planar-DBR microcavities. The observed splittings were as large as 6 meV in reflection and transmission spectra, implying 690-fs vacuum Rabi oscillations.