Abstract

One of the key issues in understanding the effects of disorder is the development of a microscopic understanding of relaxation.¹ In this regard, excitons are considerably more complex than previously studied electronic systems because they are composite particles. In narrow quantum well systems, interface fluctuations as well as alloy disorder are well known to lead to localization of excitons through various mechanisms, although the details of this localization remain unclear. Insight into this area is not only of importance to fundamental physics, but will also provide important understanding regarding epitaxial growth. Coherent nonlinear spectroscopy is particularly well suited to the study of relaxation in these systems because of the well understood spectroscopic “footprints” that are associated with specific interactions and systems.

© 1998 Optical Society of America