Abstract
The nonlinear interaction of laser light with self-assembled quantum dots (QD) is an important subject of current research. Significant work has been done on gain saturation due to the relevance for semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs). In contrast, studies under absorptive conditions seem to be limited either to pulsed excitation for semiconductor saturable absorption mirror (SESAM) applications, or to cryogenic temperatures and single dots due to their relevance for quantum information devices. However, room temperature absorptive and refractive index nonlinearities of ensembles of QD without inversion might be useful for photonic devices displaying optical bistability, optical pattern formation, spatial solitons or slow light [1-3]. Here, we are reporting on the saturation of the cw absorption of InAs QD close to the telecommunication O-band.
© 2011 Optical Society of America
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