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Journal of Applied Physics

Nonlinear intersubband optical absorption in a semiconductor quantum well

Doyeol Ahn, S. L. Chuang

Published Oct 1, 1987• 107 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The third-order nonlinear intersubband absorption in a semiconductor quantum well is studied theoretically using the density matrix formalism including intrasubband relaxation. It is shown that the peak absorption is reduced by half for an optical intensity 1 MW/cm2 for the well size L=126.5 Å with 3.0×1016/cm3 electrons.
DOI
10.1063/1.339369

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Infrared intersubband optical absorption between the quantized subbands and the Stark effects is of considerable interest because of their potential applications in high-speed IR modulators and photodetectors. Recently, we calculated the linear1 and third-order nonlinear2 intersubband optical absorptions with an applied electric field for the infinite quantum-well model with an effective well width (which gives the same ground state energy of a given finite quantum well). The observed intersubband absorption has a large dipole strength suggesting large optical nonlinearities which are in good agreement with our calculation based on the simple model. Distinct features of the intersubband absorption are as follows: (a) The absorption peak for the intersubband absorption increases in energy with increasing electric field over a wide range of the electric field because the energy difference between the two lowest subbands increases with the electric field. (b) The absorption peak for the intersubband absorption may (1) increase in magnitude with an increasing electric field if the intrasubband relaxation time τin is assumed to be constant or (2) decrease with an increasing electric field if the field broadening of the linewidth is taken into account. The nonlinear optical absorption coefficient with the electric field dependence is discussed.
The analytic forms of the linear and the third-order nonlinear optical intersubband absorption coefficients were obtained for general asymmetric quantum well systems using the density matrix formalism.Based on the model,the linear and the third-order nonlinear intersubband optical absorptions in electric-field biased hyperbolic quantum wells were studied.The numerical results were presented for a typical AlxGa1-xAs/GaAs electric-field biased hyperbolic quantum wells.The results show that the contributors to the nonlinear absorption coefficient are due to the electric field,the shape of quantum well and the optical intensity.
The nonlinear intersubband optical transitions in a quantum well with an applied electric field are studied with the effects of screening taken into account. Recently, we calculated the linear and nonlinear intersubband optical absorptions in a quantum well with and without an applied electric field.1-3 Interesting Stark effects on the intersubband transitions in the conduction band of an Al- GaAs-GaAs quantum well have been predicted1 and confirmed by experiments.4 The saturation optical intensity in a quantum well has also been reported to be 2 MW/cm2,5 which agrees with our theoretical calculations using the methods in Refs. 2 and 3.