Optical absorption and sideband generation in quantum wells driven by a terahertz electric field

Linear optical absorption and terahertz sideband generation in quantum well s in the presence of a strong growth-direction oriented terahertz electric field is investigated. It is shown that the electric field not only produce s multiple optical absorption peaks due to resonant coupling between the va lence subbands-the Autler-Townes Splittings-but also produces splittings in the generated sidebands. Due to the proximity of subbands in typical quant um wells, the terahertz field can couple more than two levels simultaneousl y and particular effects of that coupling are discussed.