Exciton-exciton interaction in quantum wells. Optical properties and energy and spin relaxation

Abstract

The gas of interacting excitons in quantum wells is studied. We obtain the Hamiltonian of this gas by the projection of the electron-hole plasma Hamiltonian to exciton states and an expansion in a small density. Matrix elements of the exciton Hamiltonian are rather sensitive to the geometry of the heterostructure. The mean field approximation of the exciton Hamiltonian gives the blue shift and spin splitting of the exciton luminescence lines. We also write down the Boltzmann equation for excitons and estimate the energy and spin relaxation time resulting from the exciton-exciton scattering. Making use of these calculations we succeeded to explain some recent experimental results which have not been explained so far.