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Optical Properties of Semiconductor Photonic-Crystal Structures

The document summarizes research on the optical properties of semiconductor photonic crystal structures. Photonic crystals can strongly influence material properties by inhibiting spontaneous emission and altering the Coulomb interaction. This results in spatially varying band gaps and exciton distributions. Maxwell-Bloch equations are solved self-consistently to model enhanced light-matter interaction and increased absorption due to field concentration in the structures.

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Carlos Humberto Costa
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41 views25 pages

Optical Properties of Semiconductor Photonic-Crystal Structures

The document summarizes research on the optical properties of semiconductor photonic crystal structures. Photonic crystals can strongly influence material properties by inhibiting spontaneous emission and altering the Coulomb interaction. This results in spatially varying band gaps and exciton distributions. Maxwell-Bloch equations are solved self-consistently to model enhanced light-matter interaction and increased absorption due to field concentration in the structures.

Uploaded by

Carlos Humberto Costa
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
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Optical Properties of Semiconductor Photonic-Crystal Structures

T. Meier, B. Pasenow, M. Reichelt, T. Stroucken, P. Thomas, and S.W. Koch


Department of Physics and Material Sciences Center, Philipps-University Marburg, Germany
http://www.physik.uni-marburg.de/~meier/

Photonic crystals and semiconductors


Photonic crystals
1D, 2D, 3D photonic bandstructure light propagation, nonlinearities,

Semiconductors and heterostructures


bulk and quantum wells, wires, dots electronic bandstructure and confinement Coulomb interaction important for optical properties (excitons, etc.)

Outline
Brief description of theoretical approach Influence of modified transverse fields
consequences of inhibited spontaneous emission changes of exciton statistics and photoluminescence

Influence of modified longitudinal fields


dielectric shifts result in spatially inhomogeneous band gap, exciton binding energy, and carrier occupations wave packet dynamics

Self-consistent solutions of Maxwell-Bloch equations


enhanced light-matter interaction due to light concentration strongly increased absorption and gain

Photoexcited semiconductors
E
c

Interband polarization
Interband-Polarisation

lightLichtfeld field

Electron-hole attraction hydrogenic series of exciton resonances below band gap

- -

- v

energy

Theoretical description of semiconductor optics


minimal Hamiltonian

E c

Vq
v

.
cv

many-particle interaction

interband excitation

single-particle states Coulomb interaction introduces many-body problem Consistent approximations required: Hartree-Fock, second Born, dynamics-controlled truncation, cluster expansion, ...

Equations of motion and light-matter interaction semiclassical equations of motion for material excitations (density matrix): semiconductor Bloch equations

phase space filling

Coulomb renormalization

scattering and correlations

and similar equations for carrier occupations

and

Maxwell equation material response described by

Theoretical description of semiconductor optics


classical light field: semiconductor Bloch equations + Maxwells equations

quantized light field: semiconductor luminescence equations = coupled dynamics of material and light-field modes including photon-assisted density matrices

Consistent solution of coupled dynamics of light and material system

Influence of transverse fields on semiconductor optics


Transmission

Absorption
Energy

Exciton resonance lies in a photonic band gap Model study of exciton formation after injection of thermal electrons and holes in the bands: Quantum wire in a photonic crystal. Lowest exciton level lies inside photonic band gap (modeled by reduced recombination). Solution of semiconductor luminescence equations.

Exciton distribution in quantum wire


T = 10 K, strong vs. weak recombination
(free space) (1/100 due to photonic band-gap)

strong depletion of q = 0 excitons in free space overall shape NOT Bose-Einstein distribution resulting influence on photoluminescence
Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 176401 (2001)

Influence of longitudinal fields on semiconductor optics


model system

2D photonic crystal (air cylinders surrounded by dielectric medium) cap layer semiconductor quantum well

ellipsoidal shape of cylinder bottom

Influence of longitudinal fields on semiconductor optics


longitudinal part: generalized Poisson equation

generalized Coulomb potential VC

solution for piecewise constant e(r)

near a periodically structured dielectric the Coulomb potential varies periodically in space
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 19, 2292 (2002)

Corrections due to generalized Coulomb potential


position-dependent band gap: biggest increase underneath center of the air cylinders

position-dependent electron-hole attraction: strongest underneath center of the air cylinders

Excitons in photonic crystals


numerically calculated absorption spectra for fixed c.o.m. positions
0.6

Im (arb.units)

0.4

0.2

0.0

-4

-2

E-Egap (EB)

spatial variation of band gap ( 4EB) and exciton binding energy ( 2.5 EB) with periodicity of photonic crystal
Appl. Phys. Lett. 82, 355 (2003)

Spectrally selective excitation

0.6

Im (arb.units)

0.4

energetically lowest (highest) excitation in between (underneath) air cylinders spatially inhomogeneous carrier occupations excited by spectrally-narrow and spatially-homogeneous pulses
phys. stat. sol. (b) 238, 439 (2003)

0.2

0.0

-4

-2

E-Egap (EB)

Excitons in photonic crystals II


Quantum wires underneath one-dimensional ridges of dielectric material

Excitons in photonic crystals II


Quantum wires underneath one-dimensional ridges of dielectric material

variety of inhomogeneous excitons spectrally selective excitation leads to spatially inhomogeneous carrier distributions

fe

Coherent wave packet dynamics


Spectrally selective excitation in quantum wire, relaxation modeled by T1 time (4ps)

spatially inhomogeneous carrier occupations evolve in time due to wave packet dynamics

Solution of Maxwell-Bloch equations

2D array of dielectric cylinders surrounded by air Cylinders filled with thin semiconductor quantum wire Incoming plane wave polarized in direction of wires

Optical spectra of photonic crystal

(E-EG) [EB]
photonic bandstructure leads to frequency dependence transmission vanishes in photonic band gap

Optical spectra

(E-EG) [EB]
photonic bandstructure modifies absorption spectrum

Absorption spectra

(E-EG) [EB]
strongly enhanced absorption

Field concentration

field concentrates in dielectric cylinders


Pasenow, et al., to be published

Summary
Due to inhibited spontaneous emission a photonic band gap strongly influences material properties
exciton formation and statistics, and photoluminescence

Coulomb interaction is altered near a photonic crystal


spatially-varying band gap and exciton binding energy wave packet dynamics spatially-inhomogeneous quasi-equilibrium carrier occupations

Light-matter interaction can be tailored


enhanced absorption (and gain) due to light concentration

Outlook: self-consistent treatment of transversal and longitudinal effects


combining carrier and light concentration effects

Interested in photonic crystals?

Activities of the groups funded by the DFG priority program Photonic Crystals are described in this book (published Spring 2004)

Acknowledgments
Priority program Photonic Crystals

Heisenberg fellowship (TM)

cpu-time on parallel supercomputer Interdisciplinary Research Center Optodynamics, Philipps University Marburg

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