Active Boosting of the Effective Optical Nonlinearity in Semiconductor Nanomaterials

• Published in: 2023 International Conference on Numerical Simulation of Optoelectronic Devices (NUSOD) pp. 23 - 24
• Main Authors: Asirim, Ozum Emre, Ilgar, Tunc Murat
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 18.09.2023
• Subjects: Charge carrier density; Frequency conversion; Harmonic generation; Nanomaterials; Nanoscale; Optical nonlinearity; Performance evaluation; Photonic band gap; Process control; Semiconductors; Stimulated emission; Wave-mixing
• ISSN: 2158-3242
• DOI: 10.1109/NUSOD59562.2023.10273449

Nanoscale materials usually provide little efficiency as interaction mediums for nonlinear optical processes, such as frequency conversion and parametric amplification, due to their ultra-short length offering little time for considerable wave-mixing. In this paper, it is shown that the effective nonlinear susceptibility of semiconductor nanomaterials can be tuned from ultra-low to gigantic values via controlling the transition carrier density during a given nonlinear optical process. This is achieved by adjusting the intensity of a probe-beam that can be used to control the transition carrier density between the conduction band and the valence band. Since the cross-sectional area and volume of semiconductor nanomaterials are very small, a probe-beam of sufficiently high-power, which has a frequency that is greater than the bandgap frequency, can provide an enormous tuning range for the transition carrier density. Based on numerical simulations, it is shown that within such a huge range, certain values of the transition carrier density can induce a giant nonlinear optical response in nanoscale semiconductors that can be utilized to perform nonlinear operations with the same efficiency as in the macroscale. The attained results are in good agreement with the empirical results for second-harmonic generation efficiency.