Many-body luminescence from highly excited quantum-confined structures

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent advances in understanding many-body effects in luminescence from quantum-confined nanostructures, highlighting the role of level spacing and interactions in shaping complex emission spectra, especially in ring-shaped systems.

Contribution

It introduces a Luttinger liquid approach to exactly calculate many-body spectral lines in finite one-dimensional quantum rings, connecting theory with experimental observations.

Findings

Discrete luminescence spectra are dominated by many-body transitions away from the threshold.

Interactions cause weak shakeup satellites near the emission threshold.

The Luttinger liquid theory enables exact calculations of spectral line intensities.

Abstract

We review recent results on many-body effects in the luminescence from semiconductor nanostructures. Many-body luminescence from highly excited quantum-confined structures is conceptually important topic since a new parameter, a level spacing, plays a crucial role. This spacing is not merely a discretization of the bulk luminescence spectrum, as it could seem. The interplay of finite spacing with interactions (even weak) results in a highly nontrivial sequence of emission lines, their heights revealing the many-body correlations in the system. Here the complex structure of the emission spectrum, resulting from the shakeup processes in many-particle (but finite) system, is demonstrated for a confined electron-hole system of a particular geometry, in which the interacting carriers are confined to a ring. For this geometry, the Luttinger liquid theory allows one to exactly calculate the intensities of all many-body spectral lines. The positions of the lines are governed by the relation of the level spacings for electrons and holes. While close to the emission threshold the interactions cause only weak shakeup satellites of the single-particle lines, away from the threshold the discrete luminescence spectrum is completely dominated by the many-body transitions. We describe the Luttinger liquid approach for calculations of optical spectra in finite one-dimensional systems. The calculations are preceded by a detailed review of experimental and theoretical work on many-body luminescence from various infinite systems. We also review the current status of the experimental and theoretical research on quantum nanorings.