Coherent control of a THz intersubband polarization in a voltage controlled single quantum well

Ultrashort terahertz pulses in the far-infrared spectral region centered around 2 THz are used to coherently control an intersubband polarization in a GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well structure at low temperature. While the first pulse excites a macroscopic polarization, a second temporally delayed pulse switches the polarization off or refreshes it depending on the relative time delay. The switching is directly demonstrated in the time-domain for the few picosecond long free-induction decay of the induced polarization. Model calculations based on the optical Bloch equations agree well with the experimental data. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3644988]