Nonlinear intersubband optical absorption in a semiconductor quantum well

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.