Signatures of the electromagnetic field quantization in the nonlinear optical response of excitons

Abstract

Abstract. We present a fully quantum mechanical theory for an interacting system of photons and Coulomb correlated electrons and holes in a semiconductor, using a pertubation series in the exciting laser field. The theory provides microscopic descriptions of nonlinear optical processes in semiconductors related to the electromagnetic field quantization. As an application of the theory we show that it is possible to transfer the exciton-exciton Coulomb correlation to photons, thus producing pairs of near-gap photons with a high degree of quantum entanglement. The photon pairs emerge from the spontaneous optical decay of biexcitons into two polaritons. The pair intensity correlations, calculated in the low density limit for a CuCl slab and for semiconductor microcavities, exhibit quantum features which can be observed by coincidence detection.

Quantum radiation in time-dependent dielectric media

“…In quantum field theory, attempts to quantize electromagnetic field in material media date back to more than half a century ago [1,2]. Recently, interest in this problem has mainly been related to the flourishing cavity QED [3] and experiments of quantum optics in media [4,5]. In order to solve this problem, various methods have been proposed.…”

Biphotons from Biexcitons

“…As a result, in contrast to bulk materials, it is possible to obtain important levels of quantum correlation even at photon energies close to the excitonic resonance. For reasons of space we do not present here any numerical results on MCs, we only point out that a quantum-noise reduction in the intensity difference of the two emitted beams of more than 80% can be obtained taking into account parameters for realistic MCs [11].…”