Quantum beats of excitons in quantum wells

Abstract

We review our observations of quantum beats of excitons in quantum wells arising from (i) heavy hole-light hole splitting, (ii) exciton splitting due to fluctuations in the well-width of quantum wells, and (iii) free and bound excitons, using the techniques of time resolved four-wave-mixing (FWM) and pump-and-probe (PP). We also discuss quantum beats in appropriately biased asymmetric double quantum wells, representing the first observation of coherent oscillations of an electronic wavepacket in a solid, and report on the observation of unusual polarization dependence in the FWM experiments.