Abstract

A new mechanism of controlling the absorption of high-intensity signal light with frequency $\omega $ and intensity ${j_\omega }$ by complementary control light with frequency $\Omega \gt {2}\omega $ and 2 or 3 orders of magnitude lower intensity ${j_\Omega }$ is proposed. The mechanism is based on the photon avalanche effect in quantum wells. The electron concentrations in size-quantization subbands and conduction band continuum and the absorbed power of signal light are obtained as functions of the intensities ${j_\omega }$ and ${j_\Omega }$ and the time of exposure to laser radiation $t$. It is established that the resulting dependences exhibit well-pronounced threshold behavior. For example, at ${j_\Omega }\;\sim\;{0.2 - 1}\;{\text{kW/cm}^2}$ and $t\;\sim\;{0.1 - 5}\;\text{ns}$, it is possible to control the absorption of signal light, so that the absorption of this light is practically lacking at intensities ${j_\omega }$ below the threshold intensity (${40 - 200}\;{\text{kW/cm}^2}$) and becomes very strong at intensities above the threshold intensity. The case when control light $\Omega $ is the third harmonic of high-intensity signal light is also considered.

© 2019 Optical Society of America

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