Hot-carrier-transport-governed nonresonant optical nonlinearity: transient Gunn-domain grating

Abstract

We review recent investigations of nonlinear carrier transport and related optical nonlinearities in GaAs and InP crystals for the case in which photoexcited carriers are nonuniformly heated by a strong external electric field and are redistributed in a spatially nonuniform internal electric field. We simulated the nonequilibrium carrier and internal field spatial evolution in picosecond and nanosecond time domains and estimated criteria for bipolar high-field Gunn-domain grating formation in dc and ac fields. The coexisting refractive-index modulation mechanisms for free-carrier and electro-optic nonlinearities are analyzed for various external field strengths, grating periods, and excitation levels, thus providing conditions for an efficient and fast electro-optic refractive-index modulation by the transient Gunn-domain grating. Comparison of the experimentally observed enhancement of light’s self-diffraction efficiency with numerical calculations has confirmed that the nonresonant electro-optic Gunn-domain-based nonlinearity may exceed the free-carrier nonlinearity.

© 1998 Optical Society of America

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