Interacting many-body systems in quantum wells: Evidence for exciton-trion-electron correlations

TL;DR

This paper investigates the nonlinear optical dynamics of excitons, trions, and electrons in CdTe quantum wells, revealing their mutual correlations and the influence of many-body interactions on their behavior.

Contribution

It provides new experimental evidence of exciton-trion-electron correlations and highlights the role of Pauli exclusion in their nonlinear optical properties.

Findings

Trions induce distinct nonlinearities compared to excitons.

Excitons, trions, and electrons are mutually correlated.

Pauli exclusion influences phase-space filling and fermion exchange effects.

Abstract

We report on the nonlinear optical dynamical properties of excitonic complexes in CdTe modulation-doped quantum wells, due to many-body interactions among excitons, trions and electrons. These were studied by time and spectrally resolved pump-probe experiments. The results reveal that the nonlinearities induced by trions differ from those induced by excitons, and in addition they are mutually correlated. We propose that the main source of these subtle differences comes from the Pauli exclusion-principle through phase-space filling and short-range fermion exchange.