Photon avalanche effect in doped quantum wells

William E. Case, Mark E. Koch, A. W. Kueny

D.J. Newson, A. Kurobe

Philippe M. Fauchet

E. Yu. Perlin, R. S. Levitskiĭ

This paper discusses the process of triggering photon avalanche in deep doped quantum wells. The threshold intensities of the IR light that causes the avalanche are hundreds of kilowatts per square centimeter. The energies for switching the system between states with strong and weak absorption of the pump light are tens of femtojoules per square micrometer.

Philippe M. Fauchet

A. A. Popov, Andrei V. Ivanov, E. Yu. Perlin

A new mechanism of controlling the absorption of high-intensity signal light with frequency $\omega $ω and intensity ${j_\omega }$jω by complementary control light with frequency $\Omega \gt {2}\omega $Ω>2ω and 2 or 3 orders of magnitude lower intensity ${j_\Omega }$jΩ is proposed. The mechanism is based on the photon avalanche effect in quantum wells. The electron concentrations in size-quantization subbands and conduction band continuum and the absorbed power of signal light are obtained as functions of the intensities ${j_\omega }$jω and ${j_\Omega }$jΩ and the time of exposure to laser radiation $t$t. It is established that the resulting dependences exhibit well-pronounced threshold behavior. For example, at ${j_\Omega }\;\sim\;{0.2 - 1}\;{\text{kW/cm}^2}$jΩ∼0.2−1kW/cm2 and $t\;\sim\;{0.1 - 5}\;\text{ns}$t∼0.1−5ns, it is possible to control the absorption of signal light, so that the absorption of this light is practically lacking at intensities ${j_\omega }$jω below the threshold intensity (${40 - 200}\;{\text{kW/cm}^2}$40−200kW/cm2) and becomes very strong at intensities above the threshold intensity. The case when control light $\Omega $Ω is the third harmonic of high-intensity signal light is also considered.