Influence of exciton-exciton interactions on the coherent optical response in GaAs quantum wells

The degenerate-four-wave-mixing response of excitons in GaAs quantum wells is modeled using the optical Bloch equations including exciton-exciton interactions. The results display a strong dependence on the polarization of the excitation pulses. The model predicts intensity and polarization dependences of the time-integrated signal and characteristic temporal features of the time-resolved and time-integrated response in excellent agreement with observations.