Optical investigation of Bloch oscillations in a semiconductor superlattice

Feldmann, J.; Leo, Karl; Shah, Jagdeep; Miller, D. A. B.; Cunningham, J. E.; Meier, Torsten; Plessen, G. von; Schulze, Andreas; Thomas, P.; Schmitt‐Rink, S.

doi:10.1103/physrevb.46.7252

Cited by 578 publications

(341 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…The scattering time increases when the mini band-width decreases, for the same amount of disorder, and values obtained with our model turn out to be perfectly consistent with all the experimental values [9,12,16]. To conclude, we have been able to firml connect BO's suppression and dephasing in actual SL's to small deviations from exact flatnes at well-barrier interfaces.…”

Section: B D I Ssupporting

confidence: 68%

“…This periodic motion persists until the Bloch electron loses energy gained from the fiel through scattering processes. Reports of unambiguous experimental evidences for BO's in GaAsGa Al As are presently available [8][9][10][11][12]. Inelastic scattering by phonons, deviations from SL's perfect periodicity due to unintentional imperfections, intraband scattering, interminiband transitions, and scattering by impurities severely reduce the quantum coherence required for the observation of BO's.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Dephasing effects induced by weak disorder in superlattices

Díez

Domı́nguez-Adame

Sánchez

1998

Microelectronic Engineering

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We investigate the dephasing dynamics of Bloch oscillations in semiconductor superlattices by means of a very simple model including weak disorder and applied electric fields A thorough numerical study of our model allows us to claim that small, unintentional well width fluctuation can be responsible for fast dephasing of Bloch oscillations at low temperatures. We show that the lifetime of Bloch oscillations is controlled by a characteristic time which depends on the degree of disorder and is independent of the electric field This result is further supported by the excellent agreement between our model calculations and several recent experiments, and leads to specifi new predictions.Keywords: Superlattices; Bloch oscillations; Disorder; Dephasing mechanisms Dynamical effects in quantum-well semiconductors superlattices (SL's) are the basis for designing ultra-high speed electronic devices, as have been recently proposed [1]. This idea of semiconductor SL's operating at terahertz frequencies was already suggested a long time ago by Esaki and Tsu [2], who argued that electrons should undergo periodic Bloch oscillations (BO's) [3,4]: Under an applied electric fiel F, electrons oscillate in real space as well as in k space with a characteristic period given by t 5 2p" /eFd, d being the spatial period of the SL [5][6][7]. The amplitude of BO's in real space is B A 5 D / 2eF, where D is the minibandwidth. The coherent carrier motion is thus restricted to a region of length 2 A. This periodic motion persists until the Bloch electron loses energy gained from the fiel through scattering processes. Reports of unambiguous experimental evidences for BO's in GaAsGa Al As are presently available [8][9][10][11][12]. Inelastic scattering by phonons, deviations from SL's perfect periodicity due to unintentional imperfections, intraband scattering, interminiband transitions, and scattering by impurities severely reduce the quantum coherence required for the observation of BO's. Indeed, the scattering time t must be larger than the Bloch period t and therefore the electric fiel must be larger than certain critical B electric fiel F [11]. However, even in the most favorable experimental conditions t is not much c * Corresponding

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Section: B D I Ssupporting

confidence: 68%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dephasing effects induced by weak disorder in superlattices

Díez

Domı́nguez-Adame

Sánchez

1998

Microelectronic Engineering

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“…19,20 From semiclassical arguments it can be shown that BOs are characterized by a time period B =2 ប / eFa and an amplitude A B = W / eF, where −e is the electron charge, F is the applied electric field, a denotes the spatial period of the potential, and W stands for the band width. BOs were observed as coherent oscillations of electronic wave packets in semiconductor superlattices 21,22 ͑see Ref. 23 for an overview͒.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bloch-like oscillations in the Peyrard-Bishop-Holstein model

2008

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The Peyrard-Bishop-Holstein model has been previously introduced as an appropriate framework for the description of polaronic effects for charge migration in DNA. We study numerically the Peyrard-BishopHolstein model when the charge carrier is also subjected to an applied uniform electric field. We find that the polaron undergoes coherent oscillations when the electric field is applied along the stacking direction. The frequency of the oscillations is the same as in the rigid lattice ͑Bloch frequency͒ provided that the carrier-lattice coupling is not large. Increasing the coupling the single peak of the Fourier spectrum splits into side peaks around the Bloch frequency.

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“…For example, Felix Bloch predicted in his seminal paper 5 that a crystal electron carries out an oscillatory motion under the influence of an external static electric field. While scattering of the electron prevents Bloch oscillations in bulk crystals, they have been observed in a number of equivalent systems, such as semiconductor superlattices 6 , atomic systems 7,8 , arrays of coupled dielectric waveguides 9,10 and periodic dielectric systems 11 . Other examples for the ability to map wave phenomena among different physical systems are Zener tunnelling in optical lattices 12,13 , as well as the analogy between the ballistic motion of an electronic wave packet in a tight-binding lattice 14 and discrete diffraction of light in a waveguide array 15,16 .…”

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confidence: 99%

Bloch oscillations in plasmonic waveguide arrays

et al. 2014

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The combination of modern nanofabrication techniques and advanced computational tools has opened unprecedented opportunities to mold the flow of light. In particular, discrete photonic structures can be designed such that the resulting light dynamics mimics quantum mechanical condensed matter phenomena. By mapping the time-dependent probability distribution of an electronic wave packet to the spatial light intensity distribution in the corresponding photonic structure, the quantum mechanical evolution can be visualized directly in a coherent, yet classical wave environment. On the basis of this approach, several groups have recently observed discrete diffraction, Bloch oscillations and Zener tunnelling in different dielectric structures. Here we report the experimental observation of discrete diffraction and Bloch oscillations of surface plasmon polaritons in evanescently coupled plasmonic waveguide arrays. The effective external potential is tailored by introducing an appropriate transverse index gradient during nanofabrication of the arrays. Our experimental results are in excellent agreement with numerical calculations.

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Optical investigation of Bloch oscillations in a semiconductor superlattice

Cited by 578 publications

References 17 publications

Dephasing effects induced by weak disorder in superlattices

Dephasing effects induced by weak disorder in superlattices

Bloch-like oscillations in the Peyrard-Bishop-Holstein model

Bloch oscillations in plasmonic waveguide arrays

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