Influences of control coherence and decay coherence on optical bistability in a semiconductor quantum well

Abstract

We discuss the influences of two different types of mechanisms of quantum coherence on optical bistability in a semiconductor quantum well structure. In the first mechanism, only quantum coherence induced by the resonant coupling of a strong control laser is considered. In the second mechanism, the decay coherence is taken into account under the condition where the control field is weak. In two different cases, optical bistability can be obtained through choosing appropriate physical parameters. Our studies show quantum coherence makes the optical nonlinear effect of the system become stronger, which takes an important role in the process of generating optical bistability. A semiconductor quantum well with flexibility and easy integration in design could potentially be exploited in real solid-state devices.

Controllable optical bistability in a three-mode optomechanical system with a membrane resonator

“…Especially, the OB, as a nonlinear phenomenon which shows two output states for the same input state, has received considerable attention due to its promising application in the all-optical switch. For instance, many theoretical studies for the OB have been done in the quantum-well systems, [22,23] ultracold atoms, [24] optomechanical systems with a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), [3,7,8] and so on. [25,26] Furthermore, the OB phenomenon has also witnessed huge experimental progress in the past few years.…”

Control over hysteresis curves and thresholds of optical bistability in different semiconductor double quantum wells

“…[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] On the other hands, in recent years, semiconductor quantum wells have drawn significant attention because they can be viewed as a two-dimensional (2D) electron gas, having properties similar to those of atomic vapors such as the discrete levels, but with the advantages of high nonlinear optical coefficients and large electric dipole moments, due to the small effective electron mass. Several typical interesting phenomena such as EIT, [28][29][30] highly efficient four-wave mixing, [31] all-optical switching, [32] large Kerr nonlinearity, [33][34][35] optical bistability, [36][37][38][39][40] electron localization, [41][42][43] etc. [44][45][46] have been demonstrated in these solid media.…”

Phase control of group-velocity-based biexciton coherence in a multiple quantum well nanostructure

“…This means that semiconductor quantum wells have received significant attention to application in quantum optics. The theory of quantum coherence phenomena in semiconductor quantum dot (QD) was introduced by Chow et al [1] Recently, several interesting phenomena such as electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT), [2][3][4][5][6] lasing without inversion (LWI), [7] four-wave mixing (FWM), [8][9][10][11] optical bistability (OB), [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] slow light, [2] and many others [28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45] in atomic systems, semiconductors, and solid states medium have been discussed and demonstrated by different research groups. In the EIT medium, the strong coherent laser fields provide the atomic p...…”