Semconductor Medium in the Transient Regime-I: Temporal and Spectral Effects

The propagation of optical pulses in a semiconductor me- dium is modeled in the limit where the optical pulse width is assumed to be shorter than the interband recombination time of the semicon- ductor. Intense pulses cause saturation of the optical transitions, lead- ing to transient changes in the absorption and refractive index of the semiconductor. The changes in absorption and refractive index lead to distortions in the spectra of the pulses.