COUPLED 2-LEVEL SYSTEMS AND THE DYNAMICS OF SEMICONDUCTOR ELECTRONS

A basic model in quantum optics is a system of interacting two‐level atoms. The simplest case where the interaction is only via macroscopic electromagnetic fields leads to the so called Maxwell‐Bloch dynamics. When a tunneling interaction and Coulomb potentials are added the model may by extended to yield the density matrix dynamics for a two‐band semiconductor. A typical property of this dynamics is the coherent coupling between electromagnetic and quantal waves. This is exploited in a solution of the ABC‐problem. The basic nonlinearities of the electron dynamics in the two‐band model are reviewed. Some of them are related to the various manifestations of the dynamical Stark effect. Copyright © 1990 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA