Third-order optical susceptibility in short-period GaAs doping superlattices

Kent D. Choquette, Leon McCaughan, D. K. Misemer

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We propose that short-period doping superlattices are suitable for the enhancement of a third-order susceptibility arising from free carriers in nonparabolic energy subbands. The inherent advantage lies in the ability to simply engineer the superlattice potential profile, yielding control of miniband energy dispersion. We consider short-period GaAs doping superlattices composed of uniformly doped donor and acceptor layers, and planar-doped n- and p-type monolayers separated by intrinsic regions. Calculations of the electronic structure of compensated and n-type noncompensated n-i-p-i superlattices incorporating miniband dispersion at nonzero temperature are reported. We show that small modulations of the superlattice potential lead to large subband nonparabolicities and we calculate a twentyfold improvement in the third-order susceptibility over bulk GaAs at room temperature, comparable to that predicted for GaAs/AlGaAs compositional superlattices.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)4387-4392
Number of pages6
JournalJournal of Applied Physics
Volume66
Issue number9
DOIs
StatePublished - 1989
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Physics and Astronomy(all)

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Third-order optical susceptibility in short-period GaAs doping superlattices'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this