Two- and three-photon absorption of semiconductor quantum dots in the vicinity of half of lowest exciton energy

We present a demonstration of the unambiguous determination of two-photon absorption 2PA and three-photon absorption 3PA in semiconductor quantum dots in the vicinity of E0 /2, where E0 denotes the peak position of the lowest exciton energy. In the spectral region where photon energies E0 /2, the 2PA cross section is determined by open-aperture Z scans with femtosecond laser pulses at relatively lower irradiances, and then the 3PA cross section is extracted from the Z scans measured at higher irradiances. As photon energies are less than but near E0 /2, multiphoton-excited photoluminescence techniques have to be employed in conjunction with open-aperture Z scan to distinguish between 2PA and 3PA. © 2008 American Institute of Physics. DOI: 10.1063/1.3049132