Microscopic theory for the incoherent resonant and coherent off-resonant optical response of tellurium

Abstract

An $\mathit{ab}\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\mathit{initio}$-based fully microscopic approach is applied to study the nonlinear optical response of bulk tellurium. The structural and electronic properties are calculated from first principles using the shLDA-1/2 method within density functional theory. The resulting band structure and dipole matrix elements serve as input for the quantum mechanical evaluation of the anisotropic linear optical absorption spectra, yielding results in excellent agreement with published experimental data. Assuming quasiequilibrium carrier distributions in the conduction and valence bands, absorption/gain and spontaneous emission spectra are computed from the semiconductor Bloch and luminescence equations. For ultrafast intense off-resonant excitation, the generation of high harmonics is evaluated and the emission spectra are calculated for samples of different thicknesses.