Abstract
The prospects for the enhancement of the third-order optical nonlinearity in the mesoscopic semiconductor structures: quantum wells, wires, and boxes are analyzed. It is shown, that if the structures are designed in such a way that the ground state and the excited states wavefunctions are spatially separated, then the electrostatic Coulomb interactions will result in the enhancement of the optical nonlinearity. The enhancement factor has been analyzed for the structures of different shapes and material compositions. It was found that the possible enhancement factor ranges from 2 for quantum wells to 10 for quantum wires and boxes.
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