Abstract

Many of the optical effects that were studied in atomic or molecular systems are currently being investigated on intrinsic excitations in semiconductors [l]. The experiments have been made possible by the development of lasers capable of routinely generating pulses in the 100 fsec regime, which are necessary due to the very short dephasing times displayed by the intrinsic semiconductor excitations. However one theoretically predicted phenomena {2] that has not been directly experimentally observed is the Rabi "flopping" of the optically induced excitation density, i.e., the induced excitation density is driven through a maximum by the incident resonant field Attempts to measure Rabi flopping in semiconductors have been hindered by not only the rapid dephasing, but also by the significant shortening of the dephasing times at the elevated densities needed.

© 1994 Optical Society of America