Direct observation of free-exciton thermalization in quantum-well structures

Exciton condensate in semiconductor quantum well structures.

We propose that the exciton condensate may form in a well-controlled way in appropriately arranged semiconductor quantum well structures. The mean-field theory of Keldysh and Kopaev, exact in both the high density and the low density limits, is solved numerically to illustrate our proposal. The electron-hole pairing gap and the excitation spectrum of the exciton condensate are obtained. The ene...

Cold exciton gases in coupled quantum well structures.

Cold exciton gases can be implemented in coupled quantum well structures. In this contribution, we review briefly the recent works on spontaneous coherence of cold excitons and on trapping of cold excitons with laser light.

Combined Exciton-Cyclotron Resonance in Quantum Well Structures

Thermalization and cooling of plasmon-exciton polaritons: towards quantum condensation.

We present indications of thermalization and cooling of quasiparticles, a precursor for quantum condensation, in a plasmonic nanoparticle array. We investigate a periodic array of metallic nanorods covered by a polymer layer doped with an organic dye at room temperature. Surface lattice resonances of the array--hybridized plasmonic-photonic modes--couple strongly to excitons in the dye, and bos...

Time-Resolved Observation of Thermalization in an Isolated Quantum System.

We use trapped atomic ions forming a hybrid Coulomb crystal and exploit its phonons to study an isolated quantum system composed of a single spin coupled to an engineered bosonic environment. We increase the complexity of the system by adding ions and controlling coherent couplings and, thereby, we observe the emergence of thermalization: Time averages of spin observables approach microcanonica...