Electric field effect on the linear and nonlinear intersubband refractive index changes in asymmetrical semiparabolic and symmetrical parabolic quantum wells

By using the displacement harmonic variant method and the compact density matrix approach, the linear and nonlinear intersubband refractive index changes (RICs) in a semiparabolic quantum well (QW) with applied electric field have been investigated in detail. The simple analytical formulae for the linear and nonlinear RICs in the system were also deduced. The symmetrical parabolic QWs with applied electric fields were taken into account for comparison. Numerical calculations on typical GaAs QWs were performed. The dependence of the linear and nonlinear RICs on the incident optical intensity, the frequencies of the confined potential of the QWs and the strength of the applied electric field were discussed. Results reveal that the RICs in the semiparabolic quantum well system sensitively depend on these factors. The calculation also shows that the semiparabolic QW is a more ideal nonlinear optical system relative to the symmetric parabolic QW systems.