Giant Kerr nonlinearity induced by tunneling in triple quantum dot molecules

A scheme for giant enhancement of the Kerr nonlinearity in linear triple quantum dot molecules is proposed. In such a system, the tunneling-induced transparency window obtained in double quantum dot molecules splits into two windows, due to the coupling with the third quantum dot. And most important, the Kerr nonlinearity can be enhanced by several orders of magnitude, compared with that generated in double quantum dot molecules. With proper detuning of the tunneling, giant Kerr nonlinearity accompanied by vanishing absorption can be realized, which opens the possibility to enhance self-phase modulation in tunneling controllable semiconductor nanostructures under conditions of low light levels. Quantitative analysis shows that the giant Kerr nonlinearity is attributed to the interacting double dark resonances induced by the tunneling between the triple quantum dots, therefore no extra laser fields are required.