Exciton enhancement effect on the third harmonic generation in ZnS/CdSe quantum dot quantum well

Abstract

Exciton enhancement effect on the third-order optical nonlinearities of a ZnS/CdSe quantum dot quantum well (QDQW) has been theoretically studied. The wave functions and eigenenergies of excitons in QDQW have been calculated under the effective-mass approximation. By solving a three-dimensional nonlinear Schrödinger equation and by means of compact density matrix method, the third-order nonlinear susceptibilities for third-harmonic generation (THG) have been calculated in a two energy levels model of QDQW. Firstly, we studied the size effect on THG in QDQW. Then we compared the value of THG with the case that only considering electron states. The results show that the THG is greatly enhanced when compared with the condition just considering electron states. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.