Tunneling-induced enhancement of self-Kerr nonlinearity in asymmetric quantum wells

•An asymmetric quantum wells structure are suggested for realizing enhancement of self-Kerr nonlinearity.•Owing to the destructive interference between different transition channels, the absorption can be safely neglected.•The enhancement of self-Kerr nonlinearity is a result of the constructive interference induced by resonant tunneling.

We propose an asymmetric AlGaAs/GaAs double quantum wells (QWs) structure for realizing the enhancement of self-Kerr nonlinearity. It is found, with resonant tunneling, that the self-Kerr nonlinearity can be clearly enhanced, while the absorption of probe field is very small and can be safely neglected. We attribute the enhancement of self-Kerr nonlinearity mainly to the constructive interference induced by resonant tunneling.