Professor Leonid Butov
UCSD Physics Department


"Phenomena in Cold Exciton Gases"

Bound electron-hole pairs - excitons - are light Bose particles. It is anticipated that Bose-Einstein condensation of exciton gas can be achieved at temperatures of about 1 Kelvin, orders of magnitude larger than the microkelvin temperatures employed in atom condensation. The exciton gases with temperatures even well below 1 Kelvin can be realized in coupled quantum well nanostructures. We overview exciton condensation, pattern formation, and other phenomena in the cold exciton gases and present the recently found spontaneous coherence of excitons.