Intersubband population inversion and induced transitions between the Landau levels in resonance-tunneling multiple quantum-well structures

Abstract

A new mechanism of creating the population inversion in the system of Landau levels in resonance-tunneling multiple quantum-well structures has been proposed. It has been shown that when the distance between the lower subbands is smaller than the energy of an optical phonon (i.e., when the scattering by optical phonons is suppressed), the population of the ground (zeroth) Landau level of the upper subband can be substantially higher than the population of the first Landau level of the lowest subband, which opens the opportunity of obtaining the tunable-frequency generation of induced terahertz electromagnetic radiation at such a transition.