The nonlinear optical properties of an‐i‐p‐istructure containing strained superlattice quantum wells in the intrinsic regions are studied using picosecond pump and probe pulses of the same photon energy. For pump fluences as low as 1.1 &mgr;J/cm2, a blue shift of the excitonic resonance, caused by the screening of the built‐in space‐charge field and the accompanying reduction in the quantum‐confined Stark effect, is clearly observed. At higher fluences, the onset of bleaching of the excitonic absorption is observed. The nonlinearities associated with the quantum confined Stark effect in the heteron‐i‐p‐iare directly compared to those arising from excitonic bleaching in identical strained superlattice quantum wells under flatband conditions. The picosecond time resolution allows a more accurate estimation of the carrier density in the heteron‐i‐p‐iby ignoring the density‐dependent recombination and a quantitative comparison between the strength of the nonlinearities in the two structures. Although such comparisons depend on the optical fluence and structure of the heteron‐i‐p‐i, we find that the magnitudes of the nonlinearities in these two specific structures are comparable on a per carrier basis, although their spectral signatures are quite distinct.