Abstract

There is currently great interest in the optical properties of geometrically confined excitonic systems [1]. Dramatic effects of reduced dimensionality including absorption spectral shifts, and excited state superradiative decay have been observed in semiconductor quantum wells and dots as well as organic molecular aggregates. The confinement dependent nonlinear optical susceptibility, which is enhanced in quantum wells and dots, offers new possibilities in the design of efficient nanostracture optical devices for optical switching and modulation. Here, we present recent theoretical results concerning the size-dependent nonlinear optical susceptibility of confined Frenkel excitons [2]. The nonbosonic nature of interacting Frenkel excitons is treated exactly, allowing us to directly assess the validity of the popular local field approximation in describing the nonlinear optical response.

© 1991 Optical Society of America