Femtosecond wave mixing experiments in ZnCdSe/ZnSe quantum wells

Extreme high order nonlinear diffracted signals are found in ZnCdSe/ZnSe quantum wells in two beam, self-diffraction geometry. Diffracted signals of all observed orders are shown to originate predominantly from excitonic resonances. Using four-wave mixing, an indication of hole-longitudinal optical phonon scattering between the heavy and the light hole states is found, and exciton-phonon interaction is studied.