Transport and coherence properties of indirect excitions in coupled quantum wells

This dissertation consists of a theoretical investigation into the transport and coherence properties of indirect excitons in coupled quantum wells (QWs) at helium temperatures. The motion of excitons along the quantum well plane is described through a quantum diffusion equation and the possibility of excitonic cloud formation is studied both due to the natural potential fluctuations and externally applied confining potentials. The photoluminescence (PL) of decaying excitons is used as a probe for their properties such as concentration, effective temperature and optical lifetime. The exciton thermalisation from an initial high energy to the lattice temperature is achieved within their lifetime due to a very effective coupling between the exciton states and a continuum of phonon states, a direct consequence of the relaxation of momentum conservation along the growth direction of a QW. Moreover, the natural spatial separation between electrons and holes prevents their recombination, resulting in long lifetimes. The dynamics of the system of excitons in optically-induced traps is also studied and the numerical solution of the quantum diffusion equation provides an insight into the extremely fast loading times of the trap with a highly degenerate exciton gas. The hierarchy of timescales in such a trap allows for the creation of a cold and dense gas confined within the trap, opening a new route towards the long sought Bose-Einstein Condensation (BEC) in solid state. Finally the issue of exciton spatial coherence is studied and an analytic expression for the coherence function, i.e., the measure of the coherence in a system, is derived. A direct comparison with large coherence lengths recently observed in systems of quantum well excitons and microcavity polaritons is attempted and interesting conclusions are drawn regarding the build up of spontaneous coherence in these systems

Microcavity polariton-like dispersion doublet in resonant Bragg gratings

Periodic structures resonantly coupled to excitonic media allow the existence of extra intragap modes ('Braggoritons'), due to the coupling between Bragg photon modes and 3D bulk excitons. This induces unique and unexplored dispersive features, which can be tailored by properly designing the photonic bandgap around the exciton resonance. We report that one-dimensional Braggoritons realized with semiconductor gratings have the ability to mimic the dispersion of quantum-well microcavity polaritons. This will allow the observation of new nonlinear phenomena, such as slow-light-enhanced nonlinear propagation and an efficient parametric scattering at two 'magic frequencies'

Localization and interaction of indirect excitons in GaAs coupled quantum wells

We introduced an elevated trap technique and exploited it for lowering the effective temperature of indirect excitons. We observed narrow photoluminescence lines which correspond to the emission of individual states of indirect excitons in a disorder potential. We studied the effect of exciton-exciton interaction on the localized and delocalized exciton states and found that the homogeneous line broadening increases with density and dominates the linewidth at high densities

Spatially resolved kinetics and spatially separated pump-probe studies of transport and thermalization of indirect excitons

We report on spatially resolved kinetics and spatially separated pump-probe studies of transport and thermalization of indirect excitons in GaAs/AlGaAs coupled quantum well structures

Dynamics of the inner ring in photoluminescence of GaAs/AlGaAs indirect excitons

A theoretical description of the diffusion, thermalization and photoluminescence of indirect excitons in low temperature (≈ 1K) GaAs/AlGaAs coupled quantum wells is compared with experiments on their photoluminescence dynamics. The results shown in this contribution demonstrate a highly accurate agreement between the two. We concentrate on two key features seen in the photoluminescence pattern: the formation of an inner ring around a tightly focused laser excitation spot and a rapid increase in the intensity from the excitation spot immediately after laser termination – the PL-jump. These striking effects are explained in terms of the diffusion and relaxation thermodynamics of indirect excitons