Resonant elastic light scattering and coherence relaxation in semiconductor structures

The relevance of resonant elastic light scattering to the relaxation of optically induced coherence in semiconductor structures is discussed. It is shown that important information on the intrinsic dephasing time of the optical excitation can indeed be extracted from the resonant Rayleigh scattering signal even in the case of inhomogeneously broadened transitions. Finally, a time-resolved technique is illustrated that is capable of yielding direct access to the coherence relaxation times in both bulk and quantum-confined semiconductor structures as long as the excitation is chosen so as to be resonant with the material transition.