Partially coherent electron transport in terahertz quantum cascade lasers based on a Markovian master equation for the density matrix
Abstract
We derive a Markovian master equation for the single-electron density matrix, applicable to quantum cascade lasers (QCLs). The equation conserves the positivity of the density matrix, includes off-diagonal elements (coherences) as well as in-plane dynamics, and accounts for electron scattering with phonons and impurities. We use the model to simulate a terahertz-frequency QCL, and compare the results with both experiment and simulation via nonequilibrium Green's functions (NEGF). We obtain very good agreement with both experiment and NEGF when the QCL is biased for optimal lasing. For the considered device, we show that the magnitude of coherences can be a significant fraction of the diagonal matrix elements, which demonstrates their importance when describing THz QCLs. We show that the in-plane energy distribution can deviate far from a heated Maxwellian distribution, which suggests that the assumption of thermalized subbands in simplified density-matrix models is inadequate. As a result, we also show that the current density and subband occupations relax towards their steady-state values on very different time scales.
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division
- Contributing Org.:
- University of Wisconsin-Madison
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1434259
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0008712
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Computational Electronics
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 15; Journal Issue: 4; Journal ID: ISSN 1569-8025
- Publisher:
- Springer
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY; QCL; Superlattice; Quantum transport; Dissipation; Density matrix; Phonons; Terahertz
Citation Formats
Jonasson, O., Karimi, F., and Knezevic, I. Partially coherent electron transport in terahertz quantum cascade lasers based on a Markovian master equation for the density matrix. United States: N. p., 2016.
Web. doi:10.1007/s10825-016-0869-3.
Jonasson, O., Karimi, F., & Knezevic, I. Partially coherent electron transport in terahertz quantum cascade lasers based on a Markovian master equation for the density matrix. United States. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10825-016-0869-3
Jonasson, O., Karimi, F., and Knezevic, I. Mon .
"Partially coherent electron transport in terahertz quantum cascade lasers based on a Markovian master equation for the density matrix". United States. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10825-016-0869-3. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1434259.
@article{osti_1434259,
title = {Partially coherent electron transport in terahertz quantum cascade lasers based on a Markovian master equation for the density matrix},
author = {Jonasson, O. and Karimi, F. and Knezevic, I.},
abstractNote = {We derive a Markovian master equation for the single-electron density matrix, applicable to quantum cascade lasers (QCLs). The equation conserves the positivity of the density matrix, includes off-diagonal elements (coherences) as well as in-plane dynamics, and accounts for electron scattering with phonons and impurities. We use the model to simulate a terahertz-frequency QCL, and compare the results with both experiment and simulation via nonequilibrium Green's functions (NEGF). We obtain very good agreement with both experiment and NEGF when the QCL is biased for optimal lasing. For the considered device, we show that the magnitude of coherences can be a significant fraction of the diagonal matrix elements, which demonstrates their importance when describing THz QCLs. We show that the in-plane energy distribution can deviate far from a heated Maxwellian distribution, which suggests that the assumption of thermalized subbands in simplified density-matrix models is inadequate. As a result, we also show that the current density and subband occupations relax towards their steady-state values on very different time scales.},
doi = {10.1007/s10825-016-0869-3},
journal = {Journal of Computational Electronics},
number = 4,
volume = 15,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Aug 01 00:00:00 EDT 2016},
month = {Mon Aug 01 00:00:00 EDT 2016}
}
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Works referencing / citing this record:
Density matrix superoperator for periodic quantum systems and its application to quantum cascade laser structures
journal, September 2019
- Demić, Aleksandar; Ikonić, Zoran; Kelsall, Robert W.
- AIP Advances, Vol. 9, Issue 9