Excitonic effects on the third-order nonlinear optical susceptibility in parabolic quantum dots

Excitonic effects on the third-order nonlinear optical properties in disk-like parabolic quantum dots are studied, and the exciton oscillator strength and the third-order nonlinear optical susceptibility due to excitons in the parabolic quantum dots are analyzed theoretically. Finally, numerical results are presented for typical CdS parabolic quantum dots. The results show that the third-order nonlinear optical susceptibility is greatly enhanced because the excitons are quantized enough in the quantum dots to make the excitons deviate from ideal harmonic oscillators. The calculated third-order nonlinear optical susceptibility is accordant with the recent experimental results. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.