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APS » Journals » Phys. Rev. Lett. » Volume 96 » Issue 23
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 237401 (2006) [4 pages]

Cooperative Recombination of a Quantized High-Density Electron-Hole Plasma in Semiconductor Quantum Wells

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Y. D. Jho1,3, Xiaoming Wang1, J. Kono2, D. H. Reitze1, X. Wei3, A. A. Belyanin4, V. V. Kocharovsky4,5, Vl. V. Kocharovsky5, and G. S. Solomon6
1Department of Physics, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611, USA
2Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA
3National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32310, USA
4Department of Physics, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, USA
5Institute of Applied Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, 603950 Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
6Solid-State Laboratories, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA

Received 21 December 2005; published 12 June 2006

We investigate photoluminescence from a high-density electron-hole plasma in semiconductor quantum wells created via intense femtosecond excitation in a strong perpendicular magnetic field, a fully quantized and tunable system. At a critical magnetic field strength and excitation fluence, we observe a clear transition in the band-edge photoluminescence from omnidirectional output to a randomly directed but highly collimated beam. In addition, changes in the linewidth, carrier density, and magnetic field scaling of the photoluminescence spectral features correlate precisely with the onset of random directionality, indicative of cooperative recombination from a high-density population of free carriers in a semiconductor environment.

© 2006 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.237401
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.237401
PACS:
78.67.De, 78.20.Ls, 78.55.−m
 
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