Nonlinear Optical Response of the Exciton-Polariton due to Exciton-Exciton Interactions
Abstract
The exciton-polariton picture of optical interactions of light with a crystal is significantly different than the result obtained treating the exciton-light interaction perturbatively. In the polariton picture, an increase in dissipation leads to an increase in absorption on resonance, while leading only to line broadening in the perturbative result. Such an increase in absorption has been observed in semiconductor crystals with an increase in temperature (A. Bossacchi et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 36, 1086 (1976)). It is known that increased exciton-exciton interactions lead to increased dissipation, and thus the optical excitation of excitons can lead to a new type of nonlinearity in the polariton picture not previously considered. This nonlinearity is characterized by a resonant, excitation-induced increase in absorption which undergoes a transition to pure line broadening(H. Wang et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 71, 1261 (1993)) when the damping overwhelms the exciton-light interaction. Such behavior has been observed in our studies of high-quality GaAs.
- Publication:
-
APS March Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- March 1997
- Bibcode:
- 1997APS..MAR.E1811S