Generation of terahertz electromagnetic pulses from quantum-well structures

Author

Luo, Marie S C ; Chuang, Shun ; Planken, Paul C. ; Brener, Igal ; Roskos, Hartmut G. ; Nuss, Martin C.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Illinois Univ., Urbana, IL, USA

Volume

30

Issue

6

fYear

1994

fDate

6/1/1994 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1478

Lastpage

1488

Abstract

Terahertz generation from semiconductor quantum-well structures pumped by a femtosecond optical pulse is studied. We propose a three-level model for the electrons and holes in the quantum wells. We then solve the coupled optical Bloch equations directly using a Runge-Kutta method and calculate the terahertz radiation field. We study optical rectification and quantum beats caused by charge oscillations in 1) a coupled quantum well in which quantum beats occur between two electron states of the coupled system and 2) a single-quantum-well structure in which quantum beats occur between light-hole and heavy-hole excitons. Our theoretical results agree very well with the experimentally measured terahertz data

Keywords

Runge-Kutta methods; excitons; high-speed optical techniques; optical pumping; semiconductor quantum wells; Runge-Kutta method; charge oscillations; coupled quantum well; electron states; femtosecond optical pulse pumping; heavy-hole excitons; light-hole excitons; optical Bloch equations; optical rectification; quantum beats; semiconductor quantum-well structures; single-quantum-well; terahertz electromagnetic pulse generation; three-level model; EMP radiation effects; Electromagnetic radiation; Electron optics; Nonlinear optics; Optical coupling; Optical pulse generation; Optical pumping; Pulse generation; Quantum wells; Ultrafast optics;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9197

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/3.299473

Filename

299473