Quantum control of a Landau-quantized two-dimensional electron gas in a GaAs quantum well using coherent terahertz pulses

Abstract

We demonstrate coherent control of cyclotron resonance (CR) in a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG). We use a sequence of terahertz pulses to control the amplitude of CR oscillations in an arbitrary fashion via phase-dependent coherent interactions. We observe a self-interaction effect, where the 2DEG interacts with the terahertz field emitted by itself within the decoherence time, resulting in a revival and collapse of quantum coherence. These observations are accurately describable using {\em single-particle} optical Bloch equations, showing no signatures of electron-electron interactions, which verifies the validity of Kohn's theorem for CR in the coherent regime.