Anomalous sharp dip of large field-induced refractive index change in GaAs/AlGaAs five-layer asymmetric coupled quantum well

The five-layer asymmetric coupled quantum well (FACQW) is a new potential-tailored quantum well for ultrafast and low-voltage optical modulators and switches. Almost linear and large electrorefractive index change can be obtained in the transparency wavelength regions. In the GaAs/AlGaAs FACQW, an abrupt change in refractive index change an due to an applied electric field F occurs at a cel-tain electric field range, which results in an anomalous sharp dip of ar Deltan versus F. The physical origin and the elimination of the dip are discussed in detail. The abrupt change of refractive index is caused by significant changes of the wavefunction overlap integrals (and exciton binding energies) of transitions between the ground states for an electron (el) and a heavy hole (hh1), and transitions between el and the first excited state for a heavy hole (hh2). The overlap changes are mainly due to shifts of the wavefunction distribution of hh1 and hh2, respectively. The dip can be eliminated by changing the position or Al content of the AlGaAs barrier layer in the FACQW. In addition, the larger negative index change in a modified FACQW structure is demonstrated.