Femtosecond coherent fields induced by many-particle correlations in transient four-wave mixing

Efficient Quadrature Squeezing from Biexcitonic Parametric Gain in Atomically Thin Semiconductors

Modification of electromagnetic quantum fluctuations in the form of quadrature squeezing is a central quantum resource, which can be generated from nonlinear optical processes. Such a process is facilitated by coherent two-photon excitation of the strongly bound biexciton in atomically thin semiconductors. We show theoretically that interfacing an atomically thin semiconductor with an optical cavity makes it possible to harness this two-photon resonance and use the biexcitonic parametric gain to generate squeezed light with input power an order of magnitude below current state-of-the-art devices with conventional third-order nonlinear materials that rely on far off-resonant nonlinearities. Furthermore, the squeezing bandwidth is found to be in the range of several meV. These results identify atomically thin semiconductors as a promising candidate for on-chip squeezed-light sources.

Polariton Transitions in Femtosecond Transient Absorption Studies of Ultrastrong Light-Molecule Coupling

Strong light-matter coupling is emerging as a fascinating way to tune optical properties and modify the photophysics of molecular systems. In this work, we studied a molecular chromophore under strong coupling with the optical mode of a Fabry-Perot cavity resonant to the first electronic absorption band. Using femtosecond pump-probe spectroscopy, we investigated the transient response of the cavity-coupled molecules upon photoexcitation resonant to the upper and lower polaritons. We identified an excited state absorption from upper and lower polaritons to a state at the energy of the second cavity mode. Quantum mechanical calculations of the many-molecule energy structure of cavity polaritons suggest assignment of this state as a two-particle polaritonic state with optically allowed transitions from the upper and lower polaritons. We provide new physical insight into the role of two-particle polaritonic states in explaining transient signatures in hybrid light-matter coupling systems consistent with analogous many-body systems.

Inverted valley polarization in optically excited transition metal dichalcogenides

Large spin-orbit coupling in combination with circular dichroism allows access to spin-polarized and valley-polarized states in a controlled way in transition metal dichalcogenides. The promising application in spin-valleytronics devices requires a thorough understanding of intervalley coupling mechanisms, which determine the lifetime of spin and valley polarizations. Here we present a joint theory-experiment study shedding light on the Dexter-like intervalley coupling. We reveal that this mechanism couples A and B excitonic states in different valleys, giving rise to an efficient intervalley transfer of coherent exciton populations. We demonstrate that the valley polarization vanishes and is even inverted for A excitons, when the B exciton is resonantly excited and vice versa. Our theoretical findings are supported by energy-resolved and valley-resolved pump-probe experiments and also provide an explanation for the recently measured up-conversion in photoluminescence. The gained insights might help to develop strategies to overcome the intrinsic limit for spin and valley polarizations.

Probing many-particle correlations in semiconductor quantum wells using double-quantum-coherence signals

Multidimensional analysis of coherent signals is commonly used in nuclear magnetic resonance to study correlations among spins. These techniques were recently extended to the femtosecond regime and applied to chemical, biological and semiconductor systems. In this work, we apply a two-dimensional correlation spectroscopy technique which employs double-quantum-coherence to investigate many-body effects in a semiconductor quantum well. The signal is detected along the direction k(1)+ k(2)- k(3), where k(1), k(2) and k(3) are the pulse wave vectors in chronological order. We show that this signal is particularly sensitive to many-body correlations which are missed by time-dependent Hartree-Fock approximation. The correlation energy of two-exciton can be probed with a very high resolution arising from a two-dimensional correlation spectrum, where two-exciton couplings spread the cross peaks along both axes of the 2D spectrum to create a characteristic highly resolved pattern. This level of detail is not available from conventional one-dimensional four-wave mixing or other two-dimensional correlation spectroscopy signals such as the photo echo (-k(1)+ k(2)+ k(3)).

Towards Bose-Einstein condensation of semiconductor excitons: the biexciton polarization effect

We theoretically predict a strong influence of stimulated exciton-exciton scattering on semiconductor luminescence. The stimulated scattering causes circularly polarized instead of unpolarized emission at the biexciton emission line in a degenerate gas of partly spin polarized excitons. The biexciton polarization effect increases with increasing exciton densities and decreasing temperatures and approaches almost unity in the ultimate case of Bose-Einstein condensation. Time- and polarization-resolved luminescence measurements evidence the biexciton polarization effect both in ZnSe and GaAs quantum wells.

Two-dimensional correlation spectroscopy of two-exciton resonances in semiconductor quantum wells

We propose a three-pulse coherent ultrafast optical technique that is particularly sensitive to two-exciton correlations. Two Liouville-space pathways for the density matrix contribute to this signal which reveals double quantum coherences when displayed as a two-dimensional correlation plot. Two-exciton couplings spread the cross peaks along both axes, creating a characteristic highly resolved pattern. This level of detail is not available from conventional one-dimensional four-wave mixing or other two-dimensional correlation spectroscopy signals such as the photo echo, in which two-exciton couplings show up along a single axis and are highly congested.

Selection rules for probing biexcitons and electron spin transitions in isotropic quantum dot ensembles

Three-dimensional rotational averages are evaluated for third-order nonlinear spectroscopic measurements of quantum dots. Photon echo, transient grating, and transient absorption are explicitly considered. It is shown that (a) biexciton formation can be suppressed relative to other contributions to nonlinear spectroscopies for isotropic nanocrystal ensembles by choice of polarizations for the excitation pulses; (b) circularly polarized excitation light can differentiate between exciton spin states in nonlinear optical experiments; and (c) electron spin state flip kinetics can be probed directly in an isotropic quantum dot system by using certain sequences of linear cross-polarized pulses.