Optical properties in symmetric and asymmetric Pöschl–Teller potentials under intense laser field

• Laser driven symmetric Pöschl–Teller (PT) potential under electric field resembles asymmetric PT potential.
• Optical properties in the well are studied in the density matrix approach.
• Optical properties are blue shifted due to increase in intersubband separations.
• Since dipole matrix elements decrease in laser driven potentials, the peaks of the optical spectra are decreased.

The effect of a high-frequency laser field on both an asymmetric and a symmetric Pöschl–Teller potentials is studied by the laser dressing parameter which depends on intensity and frequency of the laser field. The asymmetry in the symmetric Pöschl–Teller potential is introduced through an applied electric field. The parameters in the potentials and the electric field strength in the symmetric potential are carefully adjusted to obtain similar energy level separations in both the wells. Both the laser dressed potentials have infinite barrier heights. In these wells the linear susceptibility, the second-order susceptibilities such as optical rectification and second harmonic generation and the third-order nonlinear susceptibility as well as the susceptibility for the third harmonic generation are calculated using the density matrix method. The absorption coefficients and the changes in refractive index are obtained from linear and third-order nonlinear susceptibilities. When the laser dressing parameter increases, the optical properties are blue shifted and reduced in magnitudes due to higher energy separations and lower dipole matrix elements, respectively. The optical properties in the symmetric potential are higher than those in the asymmetric potential due to stronger dipole matrix elements in the symmetric potential.