Coupled Maxwell-pseudospin equations for modelling 2D self-induced transparency effects in semiconductor microcavities

Summary form only given. Coupled semiclassical Maxwell-Bloch equations are originally derived, based on the generalized pseudospin formalism for description of the dynamics of the resonant coherent interactions of ultrashort light pulses with degenerate three-level quantum system in 2D. The full-wave vector Maxwell equations are considered to be coupled to the three-level atom model for the active medium, therefore two distinct sets of pseudospin equations are derived corresponding to the TM and TE optical waves. In order to account for the polarization induced both along the propagation axis and in transverse direction in two spatial dimensions, we introduce a dipole-coupling interaction Hamiltonian allowing Rabi flopping of the population difference along and perpendicular to the propagation axis with frequencies depending on the corresponding field components. Relationship between the polarisation induced and the state vector components, describing the population difference dynamics, is derived in order to couple the quantum system equations to the Maxwell's curl equations. The pseudospin equations are phenomenologically extended to include relaxation effects.