Temperature dependence of the two photon absorption in indium arsenide

Nonlinear optical processes in semiconductors have long been a source of interesting physics. Two photon absorption (TPA) is one such process, in which two photons provide the energy for the creation of an electron-hole pair. Researchers at other FEL centers have studied room temperature TPA in InSb, InAs, and HgCdTe. Working at the Stanford Picosecond FEL Center, we have extended and refined this work by measuring the temperature dependence of the TPA coefficient in InAs over the range from 80 to 350 K at four wavelengths: 4.5, 5.06, 6.01, and 6.3 microns. The measurements validate the functional dependence of recent band structure calculations with enough precision to discriminate parabolic from non-parabolic models, and to begin to observe smaller effects, such as contributions due to the split-off band. These experiments therefore serve as a strong independent test of the Kane band theory, as well as providing a starting point for detailed observations of other nonlinear absorption mechanisms