Light-Matter Interaction and Lasing in Semiconductor Nanowires: A combined FDTD and Semiconductor Bloch Equation Approach

TL;DR

This paper introduces a comprehensive time-domain simulation model combining FDTD and semiconductor Bloch equations to study light-matter interactions and lasing in semiconductor nanowires, capturing complex dynamics and spontaneous emission effects.

Contribution

It develops a novel integrated modeling approach that accurately simulates nanowire laser dynamics with many-body effects and spontaneous emission noise.

Findings

Simulated nanowire laser dynamics including optical pumping and spontaneous emission.

Mode selection in nanowire lasers demonstrated through simulations.

Effective modeling of light-matter interaction in arbitrary geometries.

Abstract

We present a time-domain model for the simulation of light-matter interaction in semiconductors in arbitrary geometries and across a wide range of excitation conditions. The electromagnetic field is treated classically using the finite-difference time-domain method. The polarization and occupation numbers of the semiconductor material are described using the semiconductor Bloch equations including many-body effects in the screened Hartree-Fock approximation. Spontaneous emission noise is introduced using stochastic driving terms. As an application of the model, we present simulations of the dynamics of a nanowire laser including optical pumping, seeding by spontaneous emission and the selection of lasing modes.