Efficient optical pumping of organic-inorganic heterostructures for nonlinear optics

Abstract

We theoretically consider a hybrid heterostructure made of an inorganic quantum well in close proximity with an organic material overlayer whereby the latter is used to funnel excitation energy to the former in order to exploit the optical nonlinearities of the two-dimensional Wannier excitons. On the one hand, the diffusion length of Frenkel excitons in the organic medium is assumed to be comparable or larger than the corresponding absorption length. On the other hand, the nonradiative energy transfer from the organic to the inorganic subsytem can be very efficient when the Frenkel exciton energy is significantly higher than the band gap of the inorganic semiconductor. We show in this regime that the resonant optical pumping of the Frenkel excitons can lead to an efficient indirect pumping of the Wannier excitons (or electron-hole plasma) in the inorganic quantum well turning on the corresponding nonlinearities.