Abstract

This paper discusses the possibility of forming a photon avalanche in type-II heterostructures with deep quantum wells. The threshold IR light intensities that cause avalanche are hundreds of kilowatts per square centimeter. It is shown that a photon-avalanche mechanism can be used to generate nonequilibrium electron-hole pairs with weak IR light having a photon energy a factor of 3-5 less than the band gap of the semiconductor. The energy to switch the system between states with strong and weak absorption of the pump light ranges from a few to tens of picojoules per square micrometer.

Photon avalanche effect in quantum wells: controlling light with light

A. A. Popov, A. V. Ivanov, and E. Yu. Perlin
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 36(11) 3117-3124 (2019)

Terahertz plasmons in doped HgTe quantum well heterostructures: dispersion, losses, and amplification

V. Ya. Aleshkin, A. A. Dubinov, V. I. Gavrilenko, and F. Teppe
Appl. Opt. 60(28) 8991-8998 (2021)

Investigation of high optical gain in complex type-II InGaAs/InAs/GaAsSb nano-scale heterostructure for MIR applications

Nisha Yadav, Garima Bhardwaj, S. G. Anjum, S. Dalela, M. J. Siddiqui, and P. A. Alvi
Appl. Opt. 56(15) 4243-4249 (2017)

Ultrafast carrier dynamics in an InAs/InGaAs quantum dots-in-a-well heterostructure

R. P. Prasankumar, R. S. Attaluri, R. D. Averitt, J. Urayama, N. Weisse-Bernstein, P. Rotella, A. D. Stintz, S. Krishna, and A. J. Taylor
Opt. Express 16(2) 1165-1173 (2008)

Optical gain analysis of GaAs-based InGaAs/GaAsSbBi type-II quantum wells lasers

Baile Chen
Opt. Express 25(21) 25183-25192 (2017)