Exciton-related optical nonlinearities in semiconductors and semiconductor microcrystallites

We report on large optical nonlinearities due to specific many-body effects in high-density electron-hole pair systems. On bulk CdS we study the effect of free-carrier screening on the absorption and refraction in the vicinity of the band-gap at room temperature. Steady-state saturable absorption at mW-power levels and four-wave mixing with first-order efficiencies as large as 2% of the incoming light are demonstrated on a 1m slab. On CuBr microcrystallites embedded in glass we investigate the changes of the exciton absorption caused by many-exciton effects both at cryo and room temperature. In contrast to bulk semiconductors, we observe a blue shift of the exciton peak at resonant optical excitation. In addition, strong saturation of absorption with very large contrast shows up. We find Lorentzian saturation intensities in the 100 kW/cm² range.