Optically induced coherent intra-band dynamics in disordered semiconductors

On the basis of a tight-binding model for a strongly disordered semiconductor with correlated conduction- and valence band disorder a new coherent dynamical intra-band effect is analyzed. For systems that are excited by two, specially designed ultrashort light-pulse sequences delayed by tau relatively to each other echo-like phenomena are predicted to occur. In addition to the inter-band photon echo which shows up at exactly t=2*tau relative to the first pulse, the system responds with two spontaneous intra-band current pulses preceding and following the appearance of the photon echo. The temporal splitting depends on the electron-hole mass ratio. Calculating the population relaxation rate due to Coulomb scattering, it is concluded that the predicted new dynamical effect should be experimentally observable in an interacting and strongly disordered system, such as the Quantum-Coulomb-Glass.Comment: to be published in Physical Review B15 February 200

Theory of exciton-exciton correlation in nonlinear optical response

We present a systematic theory of Coulomb interaction effects in the nonlinear optical processes in semiconductors using a perturbation series in the exciting laser field. The third-order dynamical response consists of phase-space filling correction, mean-field exciton-exciton interaction, and two-exciton correlation effects expressed as a force-force correlation function. The theory provides a unified description of effects of bound and unbound biexcitons, including memory-effects beyond the Markovian approximation. Approximations for the correlation function are presented.Comment: RevTex, 35 pages, 10 PostScript figs, shorter version submitted to Physical Review

Phonon-induced dephasing of localized optical excitations

The dynamics of strongly localized optical excitations in semiconductors is studied including electron-phonon interaction. The coupled microscopic equations of motion for the interband polarization and the carrier distribution functions contain coherent and incoherent contributions. While the coherent part is solved through direct numerical integration, the incoherent one is treated by means of a generalized Monte Carlo simulation. The approach is illustrated for a simple model system. The temperature and excitation energy dependence of the optical dephasing rate is analyzed and the results are compared to those of alternative approaches

Observation of Biexcitons in Time-Resolved Degenerate-Four-Wave-Mixing on GaAs Quantum Wells

Although the importance of exciton/exciton interactions for the nonlinear optical response of GaAs quantum wells (QW) is well established by many experimental observations, the role of biexciton states in these processes is still an open question, even at low excitation densities. Evidence for the formation of biexcitons has been independently derived from pump-probe studies [1], from the density dependence of the photoluminescence (PL) line shape [2] and from signal modulations observed in degenerate-four-wave-mixing (DFWM) with incoherent light pulses [3]. Here, we report on time-resolved DFWM with parallel (PP) and cross-polarized (CP) pulses. Depending on the polarization geometry, the signals reveal strong quantum beats which correspond to the splitting between either the heavy hole (hh) and light hole (lh) exciton or the hh exciton and the biexciton.</jats:p