Kinetics of inner ring

inner-orig-small

inner-on (movie: laser on)

inner-off (movie: laser off)

inner-simulation (movie: simulation)

The formation time of the inner ring following the onset of the laser excitation is found to be about 30 ns. The inner ring is also found to disappear within 4 ns after the laser termination. The latter process is accompanied by a jump in the photoluminescence (PL) intensity. The spatial dependence of the PL-jump indicates that the excitons outside of the region of laser excitation, including the inner ring region, are efficiently cooled to the lattice temperature even during the laser excitation. The ring formation and disappearance are explained in terms of exciton transport and cooling.

A.T. Hammack, L.V. Butov, J. Wilkes, L. Mouchliadis, E.A. Muljarov, A.L. Ivanov, A.C. Gossard, Kinetics of the inner ring in the exciton emission pattern in GaAs coupled quantum wells, arXiv:0909.0790v1 (2009), Phys. Rev. B 80, 155331 (2009).

Exciton inner ring: transport and energy relaxation

inner-ring-small

inner-orig-small

The inner ring in photoluminescence patterns of indirect excitons, with a radius up to tens of microns, is caused by exciton transport away from the excitation spot over macroscopic distances and cooling.

L.V. Butov, A.C. Gossard, and D.S. Chemla, Macroscopically ordered state in an exciton system, cond-mat/0204482 April 22, 2002; Nature 418, 751 (2002)

A.L. Ivanov, L.E. Smallwood, A.T. Hammack, Sen Yang, L.V. Butov, and A.C. Gossard, Origin of the inner ring in photoluminescence patterns of quantum well excitons, cond-mat/0509097 (2005); Europhys. Lett. 73, 920-926 (2006).