Ultrashort Pulse Interaction with Intersubband Transitions of Semiconductor Quantum Wells

We study coherent ultrashort pulse propagation in a two-subband system in a symmetric semiconductor quantum well structure, performing calculations beyond the rotating wave approximation and the slowly varying envelope approximation and taking into account the effects of electron-electron interactions. The interaction of the quantum well structure with the electromagnetic fields is studied with modified, nonlinear, Bloch equations. These equations are combined with the full-wave Maxwell equations for the study of pulse propagation. We present results for the pulse propagation and the population inversion dynamics in the quantum well structure for different electron sheet densities.