Abstract

Due to symmetry considerations, polarization rotation is not possible for light incident normal to a lattice matched or pseudomorphic multiple quantum well (MQW) structure. However, it has been shown¹ that a uniaxial stress applied in the plane of the structure breaks the rotation symmetry, which should result in an anisotropic excitonic absorption due to the mixing of the heavy and light hole states in the MQW In this paper we show for the first time that the bleaching of this absorption creates an ultrafast large-angle polarization rotation which may have applications in the field of high speed, high contrast ratio spatial light modulators (SLM).

© 1993 Optical Society of America