The effects of control field detuning on the modulation instability in a three-level quantum well system

The paper presents a theoretical study of the modulation instability of a continuous or quasi-continuous optical probe in a three level quantum well system under electromagnetically induced transparency. The modulation instability is affected by the control field detuning, as well as even-order dispersion and by the strength of Kerr (third-order) and quintic (fifth-order) nonlinearities. The fourth-order dispersion reduces the bandwidth over which modulation instability occurs, whereas the quintic nonlinearity saturates the growth of the modulation instability. Detuning the control field from resonance can significantly reduce the growth of the modulation instability at both low and high power levels. At low powers, the system becomes stable against modulation instability for small detuning of the control field and at high powers modulation instability disappears for larger detuning. Published by AIP Publishing.