Abstract

There has been much interest in the dynamics of the electron population redistribution in semiconductor quantum wells, and many optical investigations of the intersubband relaxation times for the electron population in these wells, including time-resolved pump-probe studies of these relaxation times. This interest has been stimulated by the potential application of these structures in the fabrication of unipolar optical devices whose operation is based on optical intersubband transitions rather than interband transitions. Examples of applications are detectors in the mid- and far- infrared, and the quantum cascade laser.

© 1999 Optical Society of America