Abstract

The systematic study of BEC of particles with large number of internal degrees of freedom requires creation of high-density atomic condensate. However, in the typical BEC experiment the density of atoms is very low. Useful insight on the behavior of coherent matter waves may be obtained by studying excitons in semiconductors, because the exciton density can be controlled in the very wide range. This is because, unlike atoms, the excitons can be created by the absorption of photons Correspondingly, the high degree of Bose degeneracy of the single-mode photonic ensemble from laser beam can be transferred to excitons effectively creating a macroscopic coherent matter wave. This will give rise to exciton condensate with a density, which can be varied from the dilute limit of weakly interacting atomic bosons to the very dense limit found in nuclear matter.

© 2000 IEEE