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IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics

Rabi oscillations for subpicosecond pulses in quantum-well optical amplifiers: interplay of carrier heating, nonlinear, and spectral effects

Jianzhong Zhang, Ian Galbraith

Published Jul 13, 2005• 4 citations

Abstract

Using the Foreman effective mass Hamiltonian for strained In/sub x/Ga/sub 1-x/As--In/sub y/Ga/sub 1-y/As/sub z/P/sub 1-z/ quantum wells, the propagation of subpicosecond pulses in a 1.55-/spl mu/m optical amplifier was calculated. The multisubband carrier dynamics as well as the polarization dynamics were taken into account. Carrier heating and coherent light-carrier interactions as well as the interplay of these nonlinear processes and the amplifier dispersion are studied. Strong Rabi oscillations occur in the optical field of a propagated pulse, its frequency chirp, as well as in the carrier density and temperature. While the Rabi oscillation imposes negative frequency chirp and hence red-shifts the pulse spectrum, positive frequency chirp can occur due to the local gain dispersion, where the higher frequency components of the pulse have larger gain. Due to the Rabi oscillation, the spectrum of the amplified pulse is considerably distorted and sidebands emerge. For a linearly chirped input pulse, the spectrum of the output pulse can be either red-shifted or blue-shifted with respect to its center frequency, depending on its initial chirp. For strong pulse propagation, a pronounced pulse break up occurs when a 175-fs pulse propagates in the gain regime, while a significant pulse compression occurs when the pulse propagates at the transparency point.

DOI: 10.1109/jqe.2005.850702

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Using a self-consistent delay-differential-equation model for the description of the nonlinear light propagation in InAs/InGaAs quantum-dot-in-a-well semiconductor optical amplifiers, we analyze the amplifier in a four-wave-mixing setup in terms of the conversion efficiency. Our model allows us to extract the hierarchy of nonlinear effects that constitute the four-wave-mixing process. We show that spectral hole burning in the quantum-dot medium facilitates wavelength conversion over a spectral detuning of several THz, whereas the effect of carrier heating and global carrier-density pulsations is found to be negligible. Furthermore we show that for high optical field amplitudes the emergence of Rabi oscillations leads to a flattening of the conversion efficiency, potentially allowing for ultra-broadband wavelength conversion and frequency comb generation.

Summary form only given. We investigate theoretically the relation between generalized Rabi oscillations involving optical transitions in three band systems and Raman coherences. The system under consideration is a conventional GaAs semiconductor quantum well in which only the lowest subband of the conduction, the heavy hole bands need to be taken into account. We consider two simultaneous, strong sub-picosecond pulses (770 fs) of opposite circular polarization, spectrally centered at the hh and the lh-excitons respectively.

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