Optical phase conjugation in a single-level metallic quantum well

We present a calculation of the phase conjugated response from a single-level metallic quantum well. The description builds upon a recently developed local-field theory for degenerate four-wave mixing in mesoscopic interaction volumes of condensed media. The single-level quantum well represents the simplest possible configuration of a quantum well phase conjugator. Furthermore, the single-level quantum well is an interesting object, since the optical response contains no dipole terms. The discussion of the response is based on the use of linearly polarized light to excite the process. We demonstrate that the phase conjugation process is extremely efficient in the evanescent regime of the wave-vector spectrum. We also address the problem of plane-wave excitation of the high wave-number end of the evanescent regime. We end our discussion by suggesting the use of a broadband source to excite the process. One such broad angular band source is a quantum wire, and the phase conjugated angular spectrum from a quantum wire is presented and discussed.