Kategorie: Institut für Physik

Cuprous oxide is the material in which excitons were discovered first by Evgenii Gross in 1952. The energy levels of excitons can be well described by the hydrogen series. In the talk I will discuss the recent observation of highly excited excitons with principal quantum numbers up to n=25, corresponding to a giant extension in the mi-crometer-range. Similar to Rydberg atoms they show a huge interaction among each other leading to a Rydberg blockade effect. In magnetic field they allow one to enter the quantum chaos regime which for hydrogen atoms requires field strengths typical for white dwarf stars.