UC San Diego

Indirect excitons are bosonic quasiparticles composed of an electron and a hole confined to spatially separated quantum wells. Many properties of excitons, such as their low effective mass, long lifetime, tunable energy, and optically active nature, make them an ideal system for studying condensed matter phenomena. This dissertation explores the transport properties associated with indirect excitons in various environments.

In this dissertation, exciton transport is studied in multiple devices, created by carefully patterned electrodes, which create a varied potential energy landscape for the excitons. The first device is used to trap large amounts of excitons, which can be used to study the properties of dense exciton gases. The second device is used as a stirring potential for indirect excitons, and can give excitons angular momentum while they collect to the center of the device. In addition, a record high quality single quantum well structure is characterized, which may prove to be a new platform for studying indirect excitons. Measurements of this new sample show large transport and a record high diffusion coefficient for indirect excitons.