D. W. Snoke

Charge Separation of Dense Two-Dimensional Electron-Hole Gases: Mechanism for Exciton Ring Pattern Formation

About a year ago, two independent experiments [1,2], imaging indirect exciton luminescence from doped double quantum wells under applied bias and optical excitation, reported a very intriguing observation: under certain experimental conditions, the exciton luminescence exhibits a ring pattern with a dark region in between the center excitation spot and the luminescent ring that can extend more than a millimeter from the center spot. Initial speculations on the origin of this emission pattern included supersonic ballistic transport of excitons due to their dipole-dipole repulsion and Bose superfluidity of excitons. In this paper we show that the ring effect is also observed in single quantum well structures, where only direct excitons exist. More importantly, we find that these experimental results are quantitatively explained by a novel coupled 2D electron-hole plasma dynamics, namely, photoinduced in-plane charge separation. This charge separation explains extremely long luminescence times that may be more than a microsecond for the ring -- orders of magnitude longer than the emission lifetime of the excitons in the center spot. This method of continuously creating excitons may result in a highly dense exciton gas which is also well thermalized with the lattice (since the particles can cool over the very long luminescence time after their hot optical creation), thus opening up opportunities for a detailed study of quantum statistics. The in-plane separation of the charges into positive and negative regions, with a sharp interface between them is an interesting new example of nonequilibrium dynamics and pattern formation.

Role of the stress trap in the polariton quasiequilibrium condensation in GaAs microcavities

Recent experiments have shown several effects indicative of Bose-Einstein condensation in polaritons in GaAs-based microcavity structures when a harmonic potential trap for the two-dimensional polaritons is created by applied stress. These effects include both real-space and momentum-space narrowing, first-order coherence, and onset of linear polarization above a particle density threshold. Similar effects have been seen in systems without traps, raising the question of how important the role of the trap is in these experiments. In this paper we present results for both trapped conditions and resonant nontrapped conditions in the same sample. We find that the results are qualitatively different, with two distinct types of transitions. At low density in the trap, the polaritons remain in the strong-coupling regime while going through the threshold for onset of coherence; at higher density, there is a different threshold behavior which occurs with weak coupling and can be identified with lasing; this transition occurs both with and without a trap.

Considerations on equilibration of two-dimensional excitons in coupled quantum well structures

In this paper we discuss the issues of the equilibration dynamics of spatially indirect two-dimensional excitons in a coupled quantum well structure, in particular those trapped by an in-plane harmonic potential trap. We discuss the relative timescales for several processes. In the experiments with an in-plane trap, we can use the size of the exciton cloud as a measure of the temperature of particles. At low lattice temperatures the exciton temperature is higher than that of the lattice, even long after equilibrium has obviously been reached. We discuss the effects that can be responsible for this.

Moving beyond a simple model of luminescence rings in quantum well structures

The dramatic appearance of luminescence rings with radius of several hundred microns in quantum well structures can be understood through a fairly simple nonlinear model of the diffusion and recombination of electrons and holes in a driven nonequilibrium system. The ring corresponds to the boundary between a positive hole gas and a negative electron gas in steady state. While this basic effect is now well understood, we discuss several other experimental results which cannot be explained by this simple model.

Dark region of quantum well excitons in stress-induced potentials

While it has long been known that the ground state of spatially indirect excitons is optically inactive [1], its relevance to Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) has been overlooked. In the past, signatures of excitonic BEC have been sought in the form of directional luminescence or coherence of the light emitted by excitons. In this contribution, we review our recent experiments on trapped excitons, and their relevance on excitonic BEC

Trapping of 2D excitons and polaritons

In this paper we discuss a trapping method of quantum well excitons and polaritons. The trapping mechanism is based on the deformation of the band structure. Through drift experiments, first we demonstrate that both excitons and polariton react to the force of the trap and fill it up. In the case of excitons, this leads to a true equilibrium configuration, and thus the temperature of the gas can directly be measured.