NONLINEAR OPTICAL TRANSMISSION IN MULTIPLE-QUANTUM WELLS WITH RIDGED WAVE-GUIDES - EXPERIMENT AND THEORY

We report on the observations of a nonlinear optical response in the radiation pulses transmitted by a multiple-quantum-well GaAs/AlxGa1-xAs sample with a ridged waveguide configuration obtained by chemical etching. The nonlinear response is investigated through optical hysteresis obtained by plotting the transmitted power versus the input power. The physical conditions are complementary to those that characterize previous experiments in the field of optical bistability in multiple-quantum-well structures. The numerical simulations, obtained using the first-principles approach previously developed by some of us [G. P. Bava, F. Castelli, P. Debernardi, and L. A. Lugiato, Phys. Rev. A 45, 5180 (1992)], are in satisfactory qualitative and semiquantitative agreement with the experimental data. The numerical simulations also prove that optical bistability could be observed in ridged waveguide samples using cw laser sources. © 1994 The American Physical Society.