Resonant Femtosecond Emission from Quantum Well Excitons: The Role of Rayleigh Scattering and Luminescence

Abstract

We study the ultrafast properties of secondary radiation of semiconductor quantum wells under resonant excitation. We show that the exciton density dependence allows one to identify the origin of secondary radiation. At high exciton densities, the emission is due to incoherent luminescence with a rise time determined by exciton-exciton scattering. For low densities, when the distance between excitons is much larger than their diameter, the temporal shape is independent of density and rises quadratically, in excellent agreement with recent theories for resonant Rayleigh scattering.