Coherent control and decoherence of charge states in quantum dots

This Chapter contains a review of the recent results, both experimental and theoretical, related to optical control of carriers confined in semiconductor quantum dots. The physics of Rabi oscillations of exciton and biexciton occupations, as well as time-domain interference experiments are discussed. Next, the impact of carrier--phonon interaction in a semiconductor structure is described and modern methods of theoretical description of the carrier--phonon kinetics and of the resulting dephasing are presented.Comment: An introductory review chapter to appear in a book published by World Scientifi

Two-photon coherent polarization flipping of confined excitons

A two-photon process leading to coherent transitions between the two circularly polarized exciton states in a quantum dot is studied. It is shown that optical flipping of the exciton polarization is possible with picosecond laser pulses. The process is closely related to two-photon Rabi oscillations of a biexciton but it is much more stable against shifts of the laser frequency.Comment: To be presented at the school Jaszowiec 200

Four wave mixing spectroscopy of quantum dot molecules

We study theoretically the nonlinear four wave mixing (FWM) response of an ensemble of coupled pairs of quantum dots (quantum dot molecules). We discuss the shape of the FWM echo signal depending on the parameters of the ensemble: the statistics of transition energies and the degree of size correlations between the dots forming the molecules.Comment: Presented at the school Jaszowiec 2007. Corrected figures and some other minor improvement

Nonlinear optical response of hole-trion systems in quantum dots in tilted magnetic fields

We discuss, from a theoretical point of view, the four wave mixing spectroscopy on an ensemble of p-doped quantum dots in a magnetic field slightly tilted from the in-plane configuration. We describe the system evolution in the density matrix formalism. In the limit of coherent ultrafast optical driving, we obtain analytical formulas for the single system dynamics and for the response of an inhomogeneously broadened ensemble. The results are compared to the previously studied time-resolved Kerr rotation spectroscopy on the same system. We show that the Kerr rotation and four wave mixing spectra yield complementary information on the spin dynamics (precession and damping).Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, conference NOEKS1

Phonon-assisted excitation transfer in quantum dot molecules

We derive a quantum-kinetic description of phonon-assisted F{\"o}rster transfer between two coupled quantum dots (a quantum dot molecule). We show that the exciton state decays to the ground state of the QDM via a combination of the Rabi rotation and exponential decay. For moderately spaced dots this process takes place on a picosecond time scale.Comment: To be presented at the school Jaszowiec 200

Phonon effects on the radiative recombination of excitons in double quantum dots

We study theoretically the radiative recombination of excitons in double quantum dots in the presence of carrier-phonon coupling. We show that the phonon-induced pure dephasing effects and transitions between the exciton states strongly modify the spontaneous emission process and make it sensitive to temperature, which may lead to non-monotonic temperature dependence of the time-resolved luminescence. We show also that under specific resonance conditions the biexcitonic interband polarization can be coherently transferred to the excitonic one, leading to an extended life time of the total coherent polarization, which is reflected in the nonlinear optical spectrum of the system. We study the stability of this effect against phonon-induced decoherence.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure

Phonon-assisted tunneling between singlet states in two-electron quantum dot molecules

We study phonon-assisted electron tunneling in semiconductor quantum dot molecules. In particular, singlet-singlet relaxation in a two-electron doped structure is considered. The influence of Coulomb interaction is discussed via comparison with a single electron system. We find that the relaxation rate reaches similar values in the two cases but the Coulomb interaction shifts the maximum rates towards larger separations between the dots. The difference in electron-phonon interaction between deformation potential and piezoelectric coupling is investigated. We show that the phonon-induced tunneling between two-electron singlet states is a fast process, taking place on the time scales of the order of a few tens of picoseconds.Comment: Final extended version, 8 pages, 9 figure

Accuracy of effective mass equation for a single and double cylindrical quantum dot

In this contribution we study the accuracy of various forms of electron effective mass equation in reproducing spectral and spin-related features of quantum dot systems. We compare the results of the standard 8 band k.p model to those obtained from effective mass equations obtained by perturbative elimination procedures in various approximations for a cylindrical quantum dot or a system of two such dots. We calculate the splitting of electronic shells, the electron g-factor and spin-orbit induced spin mixing and show that for a cylindrical dot the g-factor is reproduced very exactly, while for the two other quantities the effective mass equation is much less accurate