JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS 109, 053101 (2011)

Effect of Coulomb interaction on nonlinear (intensity-dependent) optical processes and intrinsic bistability in a quantum well under the electric and magnetic fields
_ Ibrahim Karabuluta)
Department of Physics, Selcuk University, Konya 42075, Turkey

(Received 7 December 2010; accepted 27 December 2010; published online 2 March 2011) The effect of the electrostatic Coulomb interaction on the line shape related to the intensity-dependent intersubband optical processes in a Si d-doped quantum well is studied using the density matrix formalism. The electronic structure of the quantum well is calculated from the self-consistent numerical solution of the coupled SchrodingerPoisson equations. The line shape function is considerably modied by the optical intensity and the electric and magnetic elds. Moreover, we demonstrate the existence of the optical bistability for appropriate values of the optical intensity and also the control of the optical bistability with the electric and magnetic elds. It is also found that the intersubband relaxation time plays an important role in determining the C optical bistability region. V 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3553641]

I. INTRODUCTION

In recent years, intersubband optics has become a topic of increasing interest due to recent advances in quantum cascade lasers and terahertz (THz) devices. Intersubband transitions (ISBTs) in semiconductor quantum wells (QWs) exhibit large oscillator strengths and take place on a meV energy scale. Therefore, large optical nonlinearities related to these transitions have been obtained.1,2 At low electron densities usually encountered in semiconductor QWs, the electronelectron (e-e) interaction is negligible, and so the single electron approach becomes a valid approximation. This electron satises the single-particle, linear Schrodinger equation and resonantly absorbs light at a frequency equal to the energy difference between ground and rst excited states. Thus for a single-electron case, the spectral response is nearly Lorentzian. It is also well known that many electrons are present in real QWs, and the e-e interaction plays an important role especially in heavily delta-doped GaAs QWs.35 A single electron approximation fails in modeling and interpretation of the experimental data on the intersubband optical properties in semiconductor QWs with high electron concentration, and so it is necessary to take into account the effects of e-e interaction on the calculation of intersubband optical processes. This study is aimed at clarifying the contribution of e-e interaction to the line shape related to intensity-dependent optical processes such as nonlinear optical absorption (NOA) and nonlinear optical rectication (NOR) in a Si d-doped QW under the electric and magnetic elds. Many studies regarding the many-body effects on the intersubband transitions and the optical properties of QWs have been carried out in recent years.310 Most of these have been associated with the dynamic screening (that is, depolaa)

rization) effect.410 Another important effect resulting from e-e interaction is the electrostatic Coulomb interaction.11,12 As compared with the depolarization effect, this effect has been less studied in the literature. It is also well known that these effects tend to cancel each other.12 The asymmetry of the potential prole is very important for nonlinear optical applications. It is possible to adjust the asymmetry of the potential prole by applying electric and magnetic elds. Moreover, we have seen from our numerical calculations that both depolarization and electrostatic Coulomb effects are directly related to the asymmetry of the potential prole. Especially in strongly asymmetric QWs, the electrostatic Coulomb effect dominates the depolarization effect. In subsequent calculations, we will focus on this case and ignore the contribution of the depolarization effect to intersubband line shape.

II. THEORY

In this work, we have used the perturbative approach developed using rotating wave approximation (RWA) by Zaluzny.12 It is well known that this theory is capable of explaining the experimental data.6 The method used in the present calculations is based on the density matrix formalism, and it has already been given elsewhere, and we will not enter into details here.12 The expression for the line shape related to the intensity-dependent NOA and NOR coefcients is given by Gx; I 1 ; ^2 C2 1 I=I0 ~ d 2 ~ C2 2 (1)

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Electronic mail: ikarabulut@selcuk.edu.tr.

^ h ~ h where d x e21 1 ce D, Ci Ti (i 1, 2), C2 2 2 C2 1 I=I0 , Z0 is the vacuum impedance (120 pX), I is the intensity of the optical radiation inside the QW, and I0 nC1 C2 =2e2 jh/1 jzj/2 ij2 Z0 is the optical saturation
C V 2011 American Institute of Physics

0021-8979/2011/109(5)/053101/6/$30.00

109, 053101-1

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_ Ibrahim Karabulut

J. Appl. Phys. 109, 053101 (2011)

intensity. D is the expression for the population change and is determined through C2 I 2 : (2) D 2 2 I0 e21 1 ce D x C2 1 I=I0 h Also ce parameter is the maximum shift of the intersubband energy expressed in the unit e21 and is given by ce 0:7 21 meV; hdzie A=e 1
1 1 jGaAs =jNS 2 NS 1012

ionized dopants is obtained from the solution of one-dimensional Poisson equation: d 2 VH z 4pe2 3D ND z nz ; 2 j dz with the electron density is given by X ni j/i zj2 ; nz
i

(6)

(7)

cm (3) i2 and

with hdzie
n

 z dz
1

dz0 j/1 z0 j j/2 z0 j

 ! m kB T EF ei ; ln 1 exp ni kB T p 2 h (4)

(8)

Ns is the electron concentration in the nth subband. Looking at the expressions in the preceding text, it is not hard to see that the electrostatic Coulomb interaction directly depends on ce and D. Thus to correctly calculate the inuence of this interaction, ce and D should also be calculated exactly. Therefore, one has to determine the electronic structure of the system by self-consistent solution of Schro dingerPoisson equations. Unfortunately, in most of the studies in the literature, this procedure has been omitted, and a constant value for ce has usually been used directly. However, in this study, we solve self-consistently and numerically the coupled SchrodingerPoisson equations and calculate ce values. In addition, in our calculations, the effects of the electric and magnetic elds are also taken into account to demonstrate controllability of the optical bistability. In this paper, a single Si d-doped GaAs layer embedded in the center of an innite QW with the thickness of L is considered. The delta doping of Si atoms in GaAs QW is an efcient way to obtain the quantum heterostructures with a high density of carriers.13 Such quantum structures are very attractive for infrared devices based on the ISBTs.13,14 In the effective mass approximation, the one-dimensional Schrodinger equation for a Si d-doped GaAs QW subjected to a crossed electric eld and magnetic eld is given by 2 d 2 h Vconf z VH z VXC z eEz 2m dz2 " # !  2 ky h 2 1 2 2 m xc z z0 /i z ei / z: 2m i 2

where ni is the number of electrons per unit area in the ith 3D subband, j is the local dielectric constant, and ND z is the total density of ionized dopants. EF is the Fermi energy and is obtained from the solution of X 2D ni ; (9) ND
i 2D where ND is the 2D donor doping density. Using the parametrization suggested by Hedin and Lundqvist, the exchange-correlation potential VXC z within the local-density approximation (LDA) is given by15

Ry 1 0:7734r ln1 r1 ; (10) 10:5pa r 1=3 1=3 1 where a 4 p , r 21 4 p a3 nz , Ry e2 =2j a 9 3 2 2 is the effective Rydberg and a j =m e is the effective h Bohr radius. VXC z
III. NUMERICAL RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

(5)

Here, m is the effective mass, Vconf z is the built-in potential due to the innite barriers, E is the applied electric eld strength along the growth direction [(0,0, E)], xc eB=m c is the cyclotron frequency, z0 kx =eB is the h Landau level center coordinate, B is the applied magnetic eld strength perpendicular to the growth direction [A (zB, 0, 0)], /i z is the envelope wave functions, and ei is the energy eigenvalues. The Hartree potential [VH z], stems from the electrostatic interaction of the electrons with themselves and with

The electronic structure of such a system discussed in the preceding text has to be determined by the self-consistent solution of the coupled SchrodingerPoisson equations. Without loss of generality, and for simplicity in numerical calculations, we have set fkx ; ky g 0. We have performed numerical calculations for the Si d-doped GaAs layer with 2D L 50 nm (the quantum well width) and ND 5 1012 2 cm . The calculations have been done for the temperature 4.2 K. We assume that the donor atoms are distributed homo3D 2D genously in a sheet of thickness Dz so that ND ND =Dz. The thickness of the Si d-doped layers is assumed to be 2 nm. In our calculations, the effective mass of the electron is taken as m 0:067m0 , m0 being the free electron mass, and j 12:7, and the relaxation times are taken as T1 1 ps, T2 0.2 ps.1 Because the density of electron in a Si d-doped QW exceeds 1011 cm-2, the Hartree term completely dominates the exchange-correlation term.11,12 Therefore, the effects related to exchange-correlation interaction are ignored in our calculations. In Fig. 1, the effects of the optical intensity and the electric and magnetic elds on the line shape function Gx; I are shown, respectively. We can see from Fig. 1(a) that in the low saturation limit (I ( I0 ), the line shape function Gx; I is nearly Lorentzian. When the intensity of the light

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_ Ibrahim Karabulut

J. Appl. Phys. 109, 053101 (2011)

FIG. 1. (Color online) Line shape function Gx; I as a function of the photon energy. In (a) E 40 kV/cm, B 0, (b) I 0.07 MW/cm2, B 0, and (c) I 0.07 MW/cm2, E 40 kV/cm.

reaches a value comparable to the saturation intensity I0 , the peak of Gx; I shifts to higher energies by an amount depending on the intensity of the light (here, I0 0.14 MW/ cm2). For the intensity values larger than I0 , the peak of Gx; I shifts more than tails and the line shape of the corresponding function becomes more asymmetric. It is also interesting to note that the line shape function Gx; I has the bistable characteristic at high intensities.

In this bistable region, the line shape function Gx; I can switch suddenly between two stable solutions. This case obtained at high intensities is not observed in the study of Zaluzny (see Fig. 1).12 This is because the value of ce (%0.413) parameter obtained in this model is larger than that of ce (0.1) used by Zaluzny. We also want to stress that the theory used in our calculations breaks down when the shift of intersubband energy arising from the electrostatic

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_ Ibrahim Karabulut

J. Appl. Phys. 109, 053101 (2011)

FIG. 2. (Color online) Line shape function Gx; I as a function of the optical intensity of the incident light. In (a) E 40 kV/cm, B 0, (b) x e21 3C2 , h B 0, and (c) x e21 3C2 , E 40 kV/cm. h

Coulomb interaction reaches a value comparable to e21 , and so the present theory should be improved at this point. From Eq. (4), it is clear that the ce parameter is proportional to the spatial separation of the ground and the rst excited state wave functions. Moreover, it can be seen that this separation increases with the asymmetry of the potential prole. Therefore, it is possible to adjust the asymmetry and ce parameter and so the optical bistability by applying the electric and

magnetic elds. For this purpose, in Figs. 1(b) and 1(c), the effects of the electric and magnetic elds on Gx; I are shown. The increase in the electric eld leads to an increase in ce and to the appearance of the optical bistability in Si ddoped GaAs QW. This result can be attributed to the fact that the asymmetry of the QW potential increases with the applied electric eld. Moreover, the peak value of Gx; I increases and the peak position shifts toward blue with the

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_ Ibrahim Karabulut

J. Appl. Phys. 109, 053101 (2011)

applied electric eld. The peak value and position of Gx; I h are equal to 1=1 I=I0 and x e21 1 ce I=I0 =1 I=I0 , respectively. It can be easily seen that the peak position increases with both ce and I. This is the reason for the blueshift of line shape with the applied electric eld and optical intensity. Moreover, from our numerical calculations, an increase in I0 resulting from the decrease in jh/1 jzj/2 ij2 is observed with the applied electric eld. This increase leads also to an increase in the peak value of Gx; I . The effect of the magnetic eld on Gx; I is very different from the effect of the electric eld on it. First, the asymmetry of the potential prole decreases with the applied magnetic eld. This decrease in the asymmetry shows itself with a decrease in ce and so leads to disappearance of the optical bistability. Optical bistability is one of the most active research areas in intersubband optics.1619 Therefore, the control of both the optical bistability and the peak value and position of Gx; I with the electric and magnetic elds is very important for nonlinear optical applications. In Fig. 2(a) the line shape function Gx; I as a function of the optical intensity of light for four different values of the photon energy are shown. It is easily seen from Fig. 2(a) that for larger photon energies, the intensity dependence of Gx; I exhibits clearly the hysteresis loops in a certain range of the light intensity, and in this intensity region, Gx; I is bistable. The intensity range, where the hysteresis loop is observed, increases dramatically with the photon energy. It is also noted that the peak value of Gx; I decreases with the photon energy. Figs. 2(b) and 2(c) show Gx; I as a function of light intensity for different values of the electric and magnetic elds. It is noted from Fig. 2(b) that in the absence of the electric eld, the characteristic S curve implying the existence of bistability disappears. It is obvious from Figs. 2(b) and 2(c) that while the increase in the electric eld leads to a decrease in the threshold of the onset of the optical bistability, the increase in the magnetic eld increases this threshold value. Also it is clearly shown that with increasing values of the applied electric eld, the area of the hysteresis loop becomes narrower; on the other hand, this area becomes wider with the magnetic eld. We now consider the case in which there are multiple solutions for the population change implying the optical bistability. Eq. (2) can be written as D d de D2 1 x x 0; (11)

FIG. 3. (Color online) The ranges of values of the detuning parameter d and the intensity of the optical radiation x for which optical bistability is available (marked with the closed curves).

Finally, it is instructive to investigate the ranges of d and x for which multiple physical solutions exist. The results obtained are given in Fig. 3 for three different values of relaxation time T2 . The area inside the closed curves corresponds to multiple physical solutions of D implying bistability, whereas the outside area of the closed curves corresponds to a single physical solution for D. From our numerical calculations, given in Fig. 3, the increase in T2 leads to an enlargement of multiple solutions region. Thus the intersubband relaxation times play a key role in determining the optical bistability region.
IV. CONCLUSIONS

where d x e21 =C2 is the detuning parameter, h de e21 ce =C2 , and x I=I0 . It is possible to rewrite Eq. (11) in the form D3 a2 D2 a1 D a0 0; where a0 a1 1 d x=de , and a2 Then we look for the sign of the parameter D q3 r 2 ; x=d2 , e
2

In summary, the effects of e-e interaction on the line shape function Gx; I in a Si d-doped QW are studied. It is found that the electrostatic Coulomb interaction shifts the peak position of Gx; I to blue and leads to the signicant asymmetry of the line shape. In addition, the optical bistability can be easily controlled by the photon energy and the electric and magnetic elds. Although the theory used in this study is well matched with the experimental results, a more complete theory including the variation of the relaxation time with intensity and also the contribution of LO phonon is needed. We hope that the present study will be useful in the design of the devices based on the intensity-dependent optical processes.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

(12) 2d=d2 . e (13)

_ I. K. wishes to thank U. Atav, I. Carusotto, and M. Zaluzny for useful discussions. This work was partially supported by the BAP ofce of Selcuk University.
1

where q a1 =3 a2 =9, and r a1 a2 3a0 =6 a3 =27. 2 2 To obtain multiple physical solutions, a necessary condition is D 0.20

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13

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