A comprehensive investigation of the optical properties of excitonic molecules in CuCl films is presented and discussed. The experimental work includes resonant two-photon absorption (TPA), observations of the resonantly excited biexciton emission, and optical pump-and-probe studies. The collision broadening of the TPA implies a collision rate ∼${10}^{-12\mathrm{}}$ sec for the biexcitons, which is sufficiently rapid to establish a quasithermal equilibrium for the particles on a time scale that is short in comparison with the biexciton lifetime and the duration of the laser pump pulse. The biexciton luminescence line shapes obtained with resonant $\overrightarrow{\mathrm{k}}=0\mathrm{}$ two-photon excitation have been fitted using a Bose-Einstein thermal distribution of biexcitons. The chemical potential obtained from the fits goes to zero as the biexciton density is increased at a fixed lattice temperature or if the lattice temperature is decreased at fixed density. The sharp luminescence features that are observed at high densities and low temperatures with single-beam, two-photon excitation are interpreted as resulting from a Bose-Einstein—condensed state of the biexcitons at twice the wave vector of the laser pumping photons. Further evidence for a condensed state is obtained from optical-probe measurements in which a small number of probe biexcitons is injected into the sample, with and without the presence of a condensed state produced by an intense laser pump beam. The luminescence of these injected probe biexcitons is modified in the presence of the pump beam such that it exhibits the sharp features of the emission from the condensed state. Measurements of optical gain and stimulated emission in the presence of the pump beam show that the redistribution of the probe luminescence does not result from those processes, but must involve a preferential redistribution of the probe particles in momentum space via collisions. Such a redistribution is expected when additional particles are added to a condensed system of bosons.

• Received 19 August 1982

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.27.2325