Terahertz four-wave mixing in semiconductor optical amplifiers: Experiment and theory

Abstract

Highly nondegenerate four-wave mixing processes in bulk semiconductor optical amplifiers are analyzed by comparing experimental data at detuning frequencies up to 3 THz with numerical calculations based on semiclassical density-matrix equations. Carrier heating and spectral holeburning are found to be dominant in mediating wave mixing in the THz region and lead to comparable contributions to nonlinear gain suppression in semiconductor lasers.