Optical Nonlinearities in the Transparency Region of Bulk Semiconductors
Abstract
The nonlinear optical properties of semiconductors are among the first studied (Braunstein and Ockman, 1964) and continue to be extensively investigated (Haug, 1988; Miller et al., 1981a; Jain and Klein, 1983) and used for a variety of applications (e.g., optical switching (Stegeman and Wright,1990) and short pulse production (Keller et al., 1996; Kaetner et al., 1995) (See also Vol. 59, Chap. 4). Some of the largest nonlinearities ever reported have been in semiconductors (Miller and Duncan, 1987; Hill et al., 1982) and involve near-gap excitation. However, these resonant nonlinearities, by their nature, involve significant linear absorption (see Chap. 1 in this volume and Chap. 5 in Vol. 59), which is undesirable in many applications. In this chapter we concentrate on the nonlinear response in the transparency range of semiconductors, i.e., for photon energies far enough below the bandgap energy E sub g that bound-electronic nonlinearities either dominate the nonlinear response or are responsible for initiating free-carrier nonlinearities (e.g., two-photon absorption-created carrier nonlinearities). The bound-electronic nonlinearities of two-photon absorption (2PA) and the optical Kerr effect are the primary nonlinearities of interest.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1999
- Accession Number
- AD1142477
Entities
People
- Eric W. Van Stryland
- Mansoor Sheik-bahae
Organizations
- University of Central Florida