Quantum interference control of currents in CdSe via single beam polarization interference

Summary form only given. The use of quantum interference effects to control the properties of semiconductors via phased optical beams has been a subject of strong recent interest. Previously our group showed that interference between one and two photon absorption processes at 2/spl omega/ and /spl omega/ respectively can inject currents in crystalline semiconductors. In the context of nonlinear optics, the current injection tensor can be understood as a physically divergent piece of /spl chi//sup (3)/ (0;/spl omega/,/spl omega/,-2/spl omega/). Here we show that for certain non-centrosymmetric crystals, current injection can also occur via quantum interference of absorption processes involving orthogonally polarized photons from a single color beam.