Fermi edge singularity in neutral electron-hole system

Fermi Edge Fig2

In neutral dense electron-hole (e-h) systems at low temperatures, theory predicts Cooper-pair-like excitons at the Fermi energy and a BCS-like exciton condensation. Optical excitation allows creating e-h systems with the densities controlled by the excitation power. However, the intense optical excitations required to achieve high densities cause substantial heating of the e-h system that prevents the realization of dense and cold e-h systems in conventional semiconductors. In this work, we study e-h systems created by optical excitation in separated electron and hole layers. The layer separation increases the e-h recombination time and, in turn, the density for a given optical excitation by orders of magnitude and, as a result, enables the realization of the dense and cold e-h system. We found a strong enhancement of photoluminescence intensity at the Fermi energy of the neutral dense ultracold e-h system that evidences the emergence of excitonic Fermi edge singularity due to the Cooper-pair-like excitons at the Fermi energy.

D. J. Choksy*, E. A. Szwed*, L. V. Butov, K. W. Baldwin, L. N. Pfeiffer. Fermi edge singularity in neutral electron–hole system, arXiv:2209.06026 (2022), Nat. Phys. 19, 1275 (2023).