Optical coherent transient effects in semiconductor quantum wells exhibiting a two-hole species valence band

Abstract

The paper deals with the detailed theoretical investigation of optical coherent transient processes in a narrow direct gap semiconductor quantum well structure (QWS), duly irradiated by a near band gap resonant ultrashort pulsed laser with moderate excitation intensity. The photoinduced band-to-band electronic transitions are considered from both the heavy-hole (hh) and light-hole (lh) valence bands to the lowest (1s) exciton state below the fundamental absorption edge. Since the hole populations in both hh and lh bands are nontrivial in the case of the transverse plane in a QWS, we have recognized that the hh and lh excitons participate in photoinduced transitions. The photoinduced electron density is chosen to be less than the Mott density such that various many-body processes, otherwise significant, can be neglected. The well-established time-dependent perturbation treatment of the semiconductor Bloch equations has been followed to calculate the induced polarization as well as the differential transmission spectra. We find from the numerical estimates made for a GaAs/AlGaAs single QWS shined by a femtosecond pulsed Ti : Sapphire laser that the transmission characteristics of the coherent transient processes are dominated by the lh species in the QWS. Rabi oscillation and Stark splitting as calculated for the two-hole species QWS agree qualitatively very well with recent experimental observations.