Manipulation and exchange of light with orbital angular momentum in quantum-dot molecules

We study the interaction of laser pulses carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) with structural asymmetry quantum-dot molecules characterized by four energy levels. We demonstrate how the interdot tunneling endows exchange of optical vortices between different frequencies. We consider a case where a weak probe beam has an optical vortex and thus has a zero intensity at the center. The presence of tunneling coupling generates an additional weak laser beam with the same vorticity as that of the incident vortex beam. We analyze conditions for the vortex of the initial beam to be transferred efficiently to the generated beam. The propagation of Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) beams possessing OAM states characterized by both azimuthal and radial indices is then investigated for the case where the strong control beam is also an OAM mode. It is shown that the conservation of OAM states is always satisfied over the OAM exchange process. Yet, an abnormal case is observed in which the radial index induces some intensity patterns of the generated beam which differs from a pure LG beam of incident beams. Analytical solutions are provided to elucidate such effects induced by radial indices on propagation characteristics of OAM beams. When superimposing two initially present weak OAM modes, it is observed that the resulting optical vortices move about the beam axis as the light propagates, forming a sort of "constellation" around the center. The shift in axis of such a composite pulse is due to the effect of interdot tunneling which is controlled by an external electric voltage. The optical angular momenta may add a new degree of freedom in the study of solid systems suitable for quantum technologies.