Towards stimulated generation of coherent plasmons in nanostructures

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Abstract
A possible generation scheme for growing coherent plasma oscillations(plasma instability) is presented. Specific quantum well structures, where a sufficient population inversion can be maintained in the carrier distribution by appropriate injection–extraction configurations, form the basis of this scheme. Self-consistent random phase approximation calculations show that a population inversion, leading to a plasma instability, can occur in such structures. A comparison between the calculated and the observed differential conductance curves suggests that such quantum well structures could be designed as active regions for the generation of terahertz frequency radiationsources.