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Topical Meeting on Optical Bistability (OB)

Optical Stark Effect in GaAs Multiquantum Wells

A. Mysyrowicz, Daniele Hulin

Published Jan 1, 1988• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

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.

DOI
10.1364/obi.1988.tha.1

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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.
Excitonic resonances in semiconductors are very sensitive to applied optical fields. We present here a comparison between the effects of resonant and non resonant optical excitation, creating respectively real or virtual excitons. A blue shift of the exciton line and a reduction of the oscillator strength are simultaneously observed in multiple-quantum-well-structures for the two following cases : presence of a population of real excitons in very thin wells (two-dimensional systems), or presence of an intense offresonance non absorbed optical field (virtual excitons) independently of the well thickness. The latter configuration (optical Stark effect) has been studied as a function of pump intensity, determining in particular how the saturation of the blue shift is related to the exciton bleaching.
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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We describe the first reported experimental observation of an extremely fast shift of the n = 1 exciton transition energy in GaAs quantum-well heterostructures. The shift is produced by optical pumping below the band gap and is not associated with a carrier or exciton population. We interpret the shift in terms of an optical Stark effect. We present a model for the Stark effect on the ground-state exciton in quantum wells and find good agreement between the predictions of the model and our experimental results.