Optical Nonlinearities, Coherence and Dephasing in Wide Gap II-VI Semiconductors

The direct bandgap near the visible part of the optical spectrum, makes the wide gap II–VI semiconductors potentially very interesting from the applications point of view. One can foresee widespread use in future all-optical or electro-optical devices, if some of the current problems in the preparation of these materials (purity, doping, etc.) find their solution with the new crystal growth techniques that are developing these years.1,2 With these perspectives in mind, it is of particular importance to investigate the nonlinear optics of the II–VI semiconductors.