4-WAVE-MIXING THEORY IN A CAVITY-POLARITON SYSTEM

We present a theory of frequency degenerate four-wave mixing in semico nductor microcavities in the strong coupling regime. The intensity and polarization state of the signal wave are obtained from the probabili ty of the two-polariton scattering on the anharmonic potential arising from the fermionic character of the exciton constituencies. We show t hat polarization sensitive four-wave mixing measurements enable one to discriminate the contributions to the excitonic anharmonicity due to the repulsive and attractive interactions between excitons and the pha se space filling effect. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights res erved.