Quantum Theory of Optical Excitonic Bistability

A fully quantum mechanical formulation of the electron-hole-exciton-light system is developed following the work of Hanamura. In this formulation 1. The excitons are described by the "bosonisation transformation of Marumori et al. In this method exciton bose operators are introduced to describe electron-hole pairs, and anti symmetrisation effects are taken account of by a unitary transformation of the system operators, which introduces extra nonlinearities into the hamiltonian. This means that exclusion principle effects at high exciton densities are fully accounted for. The theory is formulated for Wannier (non-localised) excitons.