In the effective mass approximation, we calculated the binding energy and wave function for the 1s-, 1p-, 1d- and 1f-states of a spherical quantum dot (QD) with parabolic potential by using a combination of quantum genetic algorithm (QGA) and Hartree-Fock-Roothaan (HFR) method. In addition, we also investigated the linear and the third-order nonlinear optical absorption coefficients as a function of the incident photon energy for the 1s-1p, 1p-1d and 1d-1f transitions. Our results are shown that the existence of impurity has great influence on optical absorption coefficients. Moreover, the optical absorption coefficients are strongly affected by the incident optical intensity, relaxation time, parabolic potential and dot radius. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.