The drag of photons by electric current in quantum wells

TL;DR

This paper develops a microscopic theory explaining how electric current in quantum wells causes a directional dependence in photon transmission, revealing a current-induced shift in intersubband resonance and optical properties.

Contribution

It introduces a novel microscopic model for current drag of photons in quantum wells, accounting for depolarization and exchange-correlation effects, and explains the origin of the phenomenon.

Findings

Electric current causes a shift in intersubband resonance.

Current affects transmission and absorbance in quantum wells.

The effect arises from asymmetry in intersubband optical transitions.

Abstract

The flow of electric current in quantum well breaks the space inversion symmetry, which leads to the dependence of the radiation transmission on the relative orientation of current and photon wave vector, this phenomenon can be named current drag of photons. We have developed a microscopic theory of such an effect for intersubband transitions in quantum wells taking into account both depolarization and exchange-correlation effects. It is shown that the effect of the current drag of photons originates from the asymmetry of intersubband optical transitions due to the redistribution of electrons in momentum space. We show that the presence of dc electric current leads to the shift of intersubband resonance position and affects both transmission coefficient and absorbance in quantum wells.