Giant superfluorescent bursts from a semiconductor magneto-plasma Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • Superradiance - the cooperative decay of excited dipoles - has recently been discussed in a diverse range of contexts in which coherent coupling of constituent particles governs their cooperative dynamics: cavity quantum electrodynamics, quantum phase transitions and plasmonics. Here we observe intense, delayed bursts of coherent radiation from a photo-excited semiconductor and interpret it as superfluorescence, where macroscopic coherence spontaneously appears from initially incoherent electron-hole pairs. The coherence then decays superradiantly, with a concomitant abrupt decrease in population from full inversion to zero. This is the first observation of superfluorescence in a dense semiconductor plasma, where decoherence is much faster than radiative decay, a situation never encountered in atomic cases. Nonetheless, a many-body cooperative state of phased electron-hole 'dipoles' does emerge at high magnetic fields and low temperatures, producing giant superfluorescent pulses. The solid-state realization of superfluorescence resulted in unprecedented controllability, promising tunable sources of coherent pulses. 2012 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.

published proceedings

  • NATURE PHYSICS

altmetric score

  • 22.186

author list (cited authors)

  • Noe, G., Kim, J., Lee, J., Wang, Y., Wojcik, A. K., McGill, S. A., ... Kono, J.

citation count

  • 76

complete list of authors

  • Noe, G Timothy II||Kim, Ji-Hee||Lee, Jinho||Wang, Yongrui||Wojcik, Aleksander K||McGill, Stephen A||Reitze, David H||Belyanin, Alexey A||Kono, Junichiro

publication date

  • March 2012