Role of dynamical screening in excitation kinetics of biased quantum wells: Nonlinear absorption and ultrabroadband terahertz emission

In this work we describe the ultrafast excitation kinetics of a biased quantum well, arising from the optically induced dynamical screening of a bias electric field. The initial bias electric field inside the quantum well is screened by the optically excited polarized electron-hole pairs. This leads to a dynamical modification of the properties of the system within an excitation pulse duration. We calculate the excitation kinetics of a biased quantum well and the dependency of resulting electronic and optical properties on the excitation pulse fluence, quantum well width, and initial bias field strength. Our calculations, in particular, predict the strongly nonlinear dependency of the effective optical absorption coefficient on the excitation pulse fluence, and ultrabroadband terahertz emission. Our theoretical model is free of fitting parameters. Calculations performed for internally biased InGaN∕GaN quantum wells are in good agreement with our experimental observations [Turchinovich et al., Phys. Rev. B 68, 241307(R) (2003)], as well as in perfect compliance with qualitative considerations.