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Maxwell-Bloch Equations Modeling of Ultrashort Optical Pulse Propagation in Semiconductor Materials

Peter M. Goorjian, Govind Prasad Agrawal

Published Jan 1, 1997• 1 citation
OpenAlex

Abstract

An algorithm has been developed that solves the semiconductor Maxwell-Bloch equations, without making the standard slowly-varying envelope (SVEA) and rotating-wave (RWA) approximations. It is applied to study the propagation of ultrashort pulses in semiconductor materials. The results include many-body effects due to the Coulomb interaction among the charge carriers as well as the nonlinear effects resulting from spectral hole-burning.

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An algorithm has been developed that solves the semiconductor Maxwell-Bloch equations, without making the standard slowly-varying envelope (SVEA) and rotating-wave (RWA) approximations. It is applied to study the propagation of ultrashort pulses in semiconductor materials. The results include many-body effects due to the Coulomb interaction among the charge carriers as well as the nonlinear effects resulting from spectral hole-burning.
Recent progress in ultrafast technology has led to the generation of optical pulses as short as 8 fs. The propagation of such short pulses in nonlinear optical media requires new computational techniques in which the standard approximations such as the slowly-varying envelope approximation (SVEA) and rotating-wave approximation (RWA) are not made while using the Maxwell-Bloch equations [1]. Previous calculations, which used the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method, found that for a a Kerr-like instantaneous nonlinearity [2] significant differences can occur when the full vector Maxwell equations are used instead of the nonlinear Schrodinger equation. Recently, the FDTD method has been extended to the case of a homogeneously broadened two-level atomic system [3].
The semiclassical Maxwell–Bloch equations beyond the slowly varying envelope approximation (SVEA) are derived in order to study the propagation of the ultrashort pulse in a two-level medium. The evolutions of the pulse shape, the group velocity and the pulse peak of 2[Formula: see text] ultrashort pulse are investigated as well as the pulse splitting of 4[Formula: see text] ultrashort pulse. By comparing the numerical results with those obtained using the SVEA, the error introduced by the approximation is quantitatively evaluated with respect to the pulse width and the applicable condition of the SVEA is discussed consequently. The envelope solutions presented by us allow clear observation on the evolution of the envelope.
Femtosecond-pulse propagation in resonantly excited semiconductors is investigated by numerically solving the semiconductor Maxwell-Bloch equations for plane waves. For excitation at the exciton resonance, it is shown that the pulse absorption exhibits a strongly nonlinear dependence on the input pulse area. Very long propagation distances for strong pulses are observed, but even when all dephasing processes have been neglected, no lossless propagation (self-induced transparency) was found. The influence of the electron-hole many-body effects, nonequilibrium carrier relaxation, and optical dephasing on the pulse-propagation dynamics is studied. The exchange interaction in the electron-hole plasma is shown to support large propagation distances. For excitation of the continuum states, the dependence of the absorption on the intensity of the input pulse is reduced due to the rapid carrier relaxation into quasiequilibrium distributions.
We study coherent ultrashort pulse propagation in a two-subband system in a symmetric semiconductor quantum well structure, performing calculations beyond the rotating wave approximation and the slowly varying envelope approximation and taking into account the effects of electron-electron interactions. The interaction of the quantum well structure with the electromagnetic fields is studied with modified, nonlinear, Bloch equations. These equations are combined with the full-wave Maxwell equations for the study of pulse propagation. We present results for the pulse propagation and the population inversion dynamics in the quantum well structure for different electron sheet densities.
Summary form only. The development of high-intensity ultrashort optical pulses has lead to a number of fascinating nonlinear optical propagation studies including Rabi flopping, self-induced transparency, and photon echo, to name but a few. Common to the description of these effects, is that their propagation phenomena can be described quite adequately by employing the appropriate coupled matter-Maxwell equations within the slowly-varying-envelope approximation (SVEA), i.e., the envelopes of the electromagnetic field and polarization are assumed to vary little over an optical period and wavelength. However, for several-cycle optical pulses this approximation becomes seriously questionable.
We solve the problem of ultrashort pulse propagation in a two-level medium beyond the rotating-wave (RWA) and slowly varying-envelope approximations. The method of solution is based on the Maxwell-Bloch equations represented in the form that allows one to switch between RWA and general (non-RWA) cases in the framework of a single numerical algorithm. Using this method, the effect of a subcycle pulse (containing less than a single period of field oscillations) on the two-level medium was analyzed. It is shown that for such short pulses, the clear breakdown of the area theorem occurs for the pulses of large enough area. Moreover, deviations from the area theorem appear to be strongly dependent on the pulse shape that cannot be observed for longer few-cycle pulses.