Nonlinear acoustoelectric and acoustooptic effects in semiconductor layered systems

We study both theoretically and experimentally the interaction of intense surface acoustic waves with an electron and an electron-hole plasma of a quantum well. The experiments performed on hybrid semiconductor-piezocrystal structures exhibit strong nonlinear acoustoelectric and acoustooptic effects due to the formation of moving electron and electron-hole wires, respectively. We show theoretically that the nonlinear interaction of a SAW with a photogenerated electron-hole plasma qualitatively differs from the case of an unipolar electron system. For low temperatures, we consider the regime when the intense SAW forms moving quantum wires and quantum dots and predict a novel quantum acoustic phenomenon, self-induced acoustic transparency.