Origin of photoluminescence signals obtained by picosecond-excitation correlation measurements

We have developed a theory that explains the spectral distribution and the different time-decay behaviors of the signals observed in picosecond excitation-correlation measurements of semiconductor materials. The results display good quantitative agreement with experiments on multiple quantum wells and show that band filling has an important role in determining the characteristics of the correlation signals. Two limit cases are found and mathematically characterized: the nondegenerate regime, where the signals are positive with exponential-like decays, and the degenerate regime, where band filling gives rise to negative signals. It is shown that the technique is a sensitive probe of the carrier dynamics not fully exploited in previous work.