Influence of applied electric fields on the electron-related second and third-order nonlinear optical responses in two dimensional elliptic quantum dots

•Finite element method solution.•2D elliptical quantum dot.•Applied electric field.•Calculation of NOR, SHG and THG optical coefficients.

The coefficients of the second-order nonlinear optical rectification and the generation of second and third harmonics, related to electron energy transitions in a two-dimensional elliptical quantum dot are calculated. The conduction band states are obtained using the finite element method to numerically solve the effective mass Schrödinger differential equation in the parabolic approximation, including the influence of an externally applied static electric field. It comes about that the geometry of the ellipse has a strong influence on the optical response, being the large eccentricity case the more favorable one. Furthermore, it is shown that the application of an electric field is of most importance for achieving well-resolved higher harmonics signals.