Twisted-light-induced intersubband transitions in quantum wells at normal incidence

Abstract

We examine theoretically the intersubband transitions induced by laser beams of light with orbital angular momentum (twisted light) in semiconductor quantum wells at normal incidence. These transitions become possible in the absence of gratings thanks to the fact that collimated laser beams present a component of the light's electric field in the propagation direction. We derive the matrix elements of the light-matter interaction for a Bessel-type twisted-light beam represented by its vector potential in the paraxial approximation. Then, we consider the dynamics of photo-excited electrons making intersubband transitions between the first and second subbands of a standard semiconductor quantum well. Finally, we analyze the light-matter matrix elements in order to evaluate which transitions are more favorable for given orbital angular momentum of the light beam in the case of small semiconductor structures.

9 pages, 2 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Optical alignment and spinning of laser-trapped microscopic particles
• Quantized Rotation of Atoms From Photons with Orbital Angular Momentum
• Angular momentum exchange between coherent light and matter fields
• Twisted-light-induced optical transitions in semiconductors: Free-carrier quantum kinetics

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Twisted-ligth--ion interaction: the role of longitudinal fields
• Formulation of the twisted-light--matter interaction at the phase singularity: the twisted-light gauge
• Light-hole transitions in quantum dots: realizing full control by highly focused optical-vortex beams
• Formulation of the twisted-light--matter interaction at the phase singularity: beams with strong magnetic fields
• Magneto-Electric Response of Quantum Structures Driven by Optical Vector Beams
• Insensitivity of spin dynamics to the orbital angular momentum transferred from twisted light to extended semiconductors