Optical nonlinearity enhanced by metal nanoparticle in CdTe quantum dots

Abstract

The optical nonlinearity of a CdTe quantum dot enhanced by a gold nanoparticle has been theoretically studied by employing the multi-bands effective mass method. The energy levels have been computed using 6×6 k.p model for the valence band. The semiconductor quantum dot-size-dependent third-order susceptibility of third harmonic generation in a CdTeAu nanocrystal complex has been analyzed. It is found that the metal nanoparticle enhances the optical nonlinearity of the semiconductor quantum dot due to the dipole/multipole interaction that will bring in the strong damping and the field enhancement. By choosing the radius of CdTe quantum dot, the third-order nonlinear susceptibility for third harmonic generation can be optimized for the one- and multi-photon resonance. Also, we can alter the optical nonlinearity by changing the ratio of semiconductormetal nanoparticle distance to the metal nanoparticle radius. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.