Electromagnetic signal mixing in stratified quantum structures

Characteristics of a mixer with a spatial nonlinear element based on the stratified quantum structure are analyzed; the nonlinearity mechanism is related to electron transitions between the subzones of the dimensional quantization in semiconductor layers. It is shown that the relationship between the transformation losses and the heterodyne field amplitude, both for harmonic and subharmonic pumping, is affected by the presence of oscillations and resonance features. Minimum transformation losses were found to result from the value of the heterodyne field amplitude that is close to the corresponding critical nonlinearity field. Furthermore, the position of the loss curve is shown to be independent of the amplitude of the pump field.