Marked Enhancement of Optical Kerr Signal in Proportion to Fourth Power of Quality Factor of a GaAs/AlAs Multilayer Cavity

Abstract

The enhanced optical Kerr effect in a GaAs/AlAs multilayer cavity has been studied by numerical simulation using the self-consistent transfer matrix method. The simulated Kerr signal intensity of the cavity mode (λ∼1504 nm) markedly increases with increasing multilayer period because of the high quality factor (Q) of the multilayer cavity. The simulation results reveal that Kerr signal intensity increases in proportion to Q4, which is well explained by the enhanced nonlinear phase shift owing to (1) the large refractive index change induced by the strong internal optical field of the pump light and (2) the long photon lifetime of the probe light in the multilayer cavity.