Abstract

Quantum wells, made of thin (e.g. 10 nm) layers of semiconductors, offer both an intriguing “laboratory” to do quantum mechanics, and also allow real, practical, quantum mechanical engineering of novel and useful devices. They can be used, for example, to investigate “atomic” physics under extreme conditions, investigate the transition between nonlinear optics and coherent electronic transport, and study basic quantum optics. In applications, they are key to many of the new optoelectronic devices that will enable the emerging information age, from low power semiconductor lasers through femtosecond optical pulse generation to massively parallel optical interconnections from silicon integrated circuits.

© 1996 Optical Society of America