Dynamics of a nanowire superlattice in an ac electric field

TL;DR

This paper studies how a nanowire superlattice responds to an ac electric field, revealing complex resonant dynamics, different oscillation patterns, and a barrier-well inversion phenomenon through numerical solutions of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed numerical analysis of nanowire superlattice dynamics under ac fields, highlighting complex resonant behaviors beyond simple two-level models.

Findings

Resonant ac fields induce complex coherent oscillations.

Different energy level transitions produce distinct oscillation patterns.

Barrier-well inversion phenomenon is observed in the superlattice.

Abstract

With a one-band envelope function theory, we investigate the dynamics of a finite nanowire superlattice driven by an ac electric field by solving numerically the time-dependent Schroedinger equation. We find that for an ac electric field resonant with two energy levels located in two different minibands, the coherent dynamics in nanowire superlattices is much more complex as compared to the standard two-level description. Depending on the energy levels involved in the transitions, the coherent oscillations exhibit different patterns. A signature of barrier-well inversion phenomenon in nanowire superlattices is also obtained.