  The coherent interaction of light with matter imprints the phase information
of the light field on the wavefunction of the photon-dressed electronic state.
Driving electric field, together with a stable phase that is associated with
the optical probe pulses, enables the role of the dressed state in the optical
response to be investigated. We observed optical absorption strengths modulated
on a sub-cycle timescale in a GaAs quantum well in the presence of a
multi-cycle terahertz driving pulse using a near-infrared probe pulse. The
measurements were in good agreement with the analytical formula that accounts
for the optical susceptibilities caused by the dressed state of excitons, which
indicates that the output probe intensity was coherently reshaped by the
excitonic sideband emissions.
