Influence of external fields

Abstract

The application of external fields provides a powerful tool to investigate a large variety of properties of excitons and exciton related processes. Within this chapter, we focus on the fundamental effects of static magnetic and strain fields on the optical properties of excitons in ZnO. The description is complemented by relevant examples. A general review of this topic can be found for constant fields in [Cho, Excitons, Topics in Current Physics, vol. 14 (Springer, Heidelberg, 1979)] and Hönerlage et al. [Phys. Rep. 124:161, 1985] and for modulation techniques in [Cardona, Modulation Spectroscopy (Academic, New York, 1969); Seraphin, Modulation Spectroscopy (North Holland, Amsterdam, 1973); Goldsmith, NATO Science Series II, Frontiers of Optical Spectroscopy, vol. 168 (Springer Netherlands, 2005)]. Not much has been published on the influence of static electric fields on excitons. A few references are given at the end of Sect. 8.2.