Aharonov-Bohm effect for excitons in a semiconductor quantum ring dressed by circularly polarized light

TL;DR

This paper theoretically demonstrates that circularly polarized light induces an Aharonov-Bohm effect in excitons within semiconductor quantum rings, causing energy splitting based on light intensity and frequency.

Contribution

It introduces a novel optical control mechanism for excitonic states in quantum rings via strong light-matter coupling, revealing a new form of the Aharonov-Bohm effect.

Findings

Energy splitting depends on light intensity and frequency.

Circularly polarized light breaks rotational symmetry of excitons.

The effect is observable with current optical techniques.

Abstract

We show theoretically that the strong coupling of circularly polarized photons to an exciton in ring-like semiconductor nanostructures results in physical nonequivalence of clockwise and counterclockwise exciton rotations in the ring. As a consequence, the stationary energy splitting of exciton states corresponding to these mutually opposite rotations appears. This excitonic Aharonov-Bohm effect depends on the intensity and frequency of the circularly polarized field and can be detected in state-of-the-art optical experiments.