Nonlinear optical properties of asymmetric double-graded quantum wells

Abstract

In this work, the effects of the structure parameters, such as the central barrier thickness and the aluminium concentrations x, on the linear and nonlinear intersubband optical absorption coefficients and refractive index changes of the asymmetric double-graded quantum wells (ADGQWs) under the presence of an external static electric field are studied theoretically. The nonlinear optical properties of the ADGQWs are obtained using the compact-density matrix approach and iterative method. The numerical results obtained from the present work show that the external static electric field and the structure parameters play an important role in the optical properties of ADGQWs. Depending on the asymmetric nature of the confinement potential, in an electric field of <= 20 kV/cm, the overlap between electronic wave functions decreases with increasing field whereas it increases for larger field values. The tunability of intersubband transitions can be applied to optical modulators and various device applications based on the optical transitions of electrons.