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Applied Physics Letters

Room-temperature excitonic optical bistability in a GaAs-GaAlAs superlattice étalon

H. M. Gibbs, S. S. Tarng, Jack L. Jewell, Doreen A. Weinberger, Kuochou Tai, Arthur C. Gossard, S. L. McCall, A. Passner, W. Wiegmann

Published Aug 1, 1982• 238 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The quantum wells provided by a superlattice increase the binding energy of the free excitons in GaAs, permitting 300 K bistable operation of a superlattice etalon. The superlattice consists of 61 periods of 336 Å GaAs and 401 Å Ga0.73Al0.27As. The intensities required are about 1 mW/ ( μm)2 and the switching times are 20–40 ns, similar to the low-temperature pure GaAs values. Room-temperature operation of semiconductor etalons enhances the likelihood of all-optical logic and switching.

DOI
10.1063/1.93490

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The quantum wells provided by a superlattice increase the binding energy of the free excitons in GaAs, permitting 300 K bistable operation of a superlattice etalon. The superlattice consists of 61 periods of 336 Å GaAs and 401 Å Ga0.73Al0.27As. The intensities required are about 1 mW/ ( μm)2 and the switching times are 20–40 ns, similar to the low-temperature pure GaAs values. Room-temperature operation of semiconductor etalons enhances the likelihood of all-optical logic and switching.
Optical bistable devices may someday be the key elements of all-optical logic and computing systems.1 Semiconductor devices appear particularly promising because of very large optical nonlinearities permitting the construction of very small devices. The goal is to develop small (≃ 1 μm), fast (≃ 1 ps), low-power (≃ 1 μW), high-temperature (≃ 300 K) devices. Herein is reported room-temperature operation of GaAs devices that are similar in size, speed, and power to the low-temperature pure-GaAs device.2
Optical bistability has been observed in a semiconductor for the first time. The bistable etalon consists of a GaAlAs-GaAs-GaAlAs molecular-beam-epitaxially-grown sandwich with 90% reflectivity coatings. The bistability is primarily dispersive with the nonlinear refractive index arising from light-induced changes in exciton absorption. Using light of frequency just below the exciton peak, we observed bistability from 5 to 120 °K with 40-ns turn-off and subnanosecond turn-on times with 1 mW/μm2 holding intensity.