We report pulse modulation caused by the exciton quantum beat in a GaAs/AlAs multiple quantum well. The modulation was evaluated by measuring the cross-correlation signal which is the second harmonic light generated by the probe pulse reflected from the sample and the gate pulse. The intensity of the correlationsignal decreases owing to the generation of the exciton quantum beat, and recovers with dephasing of the quantum beat oscillation. Moreover, we found that the decrease caused by the quantum beat is larger than that by changing the refractive index due to the exciton generation. These results indicate that quantum beats can be a potential mechanism to enable low power operation of ultrafast optical switches.