Nonlinear diffusion of indirect excitons in an ideal bilayer with an in-plane harmonic trap

Abstract

The nonlinear diffusion of the spatially indirect excitons in an ideal bilayer with an in-plane harmonic trap is investigated based on the theories developed by Ivanov [A.L. Ivanov, Europhys. Lett. 59 (2002) 586; A.L. Ivanov, J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 16 (2004) S3629] and Rapaport et al. [R. Rapaport, G. Chen, S. Simon, O. Mitrofanov, L. Pfeiffer, P.M. Platzman, Phys. Rev. B 72 (2005) 075428]. A nonlinear equation for the diffusion of the indirect excitons in this structure is established. The two-dimensional density of the indirect excitons in this structure is calculated. The calculations show that the density adjacent to the trap center for different exciton temperatures can remain very high even long after the photo-excitation because of the confinement of the in-plane harmonic trap, and that the indirect excitons gather several tens of μm away from the trap center. The calculations are in good agreement qualitatively with the experimental results of Voros et al. [Z. Voros, D.W. Snoke, L. Pfeiffer, K. West, Phys. Rev. Lett. 97 (2006) 016803] and prove that an in-plane harmonic trap can indeed keep an exciton gas dense near its center.