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Applied Physics Letters

Low-power optical bistability in a thermally stable AlGaAs étalon

Eric Masseboeuf, Olof Sahlén, Ulf Olin, Nils Nordell, Michael Rask, Gunnar Landgren

Published Jun 5, 1989• 13 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Optical bistability with 10 mW input power is reported in a thermally stable, nonlinear AlGaAs étalon. A 3-μm-thick silver layer, which serves both as high-reflecting mirror and heat sink, makes it possible to operate the device at arbitrary duty cycles and pulse lengths up to 0.5 s, without any regenerative pulsations, at room temperature. The device operation depends on the plasma-induced electronic nonlinearity, and switching times are typically 10 ns. Device performance is compared with results from a numerical model which takes diffraction, diffusion, and heat conduction into account.

DOI
10.1063/1.101105

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Optical bistability with 10 mW input power is reported in a thermally stable, nonlinear AlGaAs étalon. A 3-μm-thick silver layer, which serves both as high-reflecting mirror and heat sink, makes it possible to operate the device at arbitrary duty cycles and pulse lengths up to 0.5 s, without any regenerative pulsations, at room temperature. The device operation depends on the plasma-induced electronic nonlinearity, and switching times are typically 10 ns. Device performance is compared with results from a numerical model which takes diffraction, diffusion, and heat conduction into account.
Epitaxial methods allow the fabrication of nonlinear interferometric structures which include the mirrors and the nonlinear medium in a single crystal. Optical bistability is observed in these structures at mW optical power. The large excitonic and band-gap resonant nonlinearities of direct-gap semiconductors, such as bulk GaAs or Multiple Quantum Wells (MQW), allow to reach a substantial phase-shift (0.2-0.3 radian) over interaction lengths as small as a few wavelengths. This results in very compact nonlinear microcavities, with typically 5μm overall thickness.