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Applied Physics Letters

Optical bistability and gating in metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy grown GaAs étalons operating in reflection

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

Published Jun 1, 1987• 37 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Nonlinear Fabry–Perot étalons of GaAs have been fabricated with metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy technology. The étalons operate in reflection mode, and have an epitaxially grown, rear dielectric mirror consisting of a stack of alternating AlAs/GaAlAs layers. Optical logic functions using a HeNe laser and optical bistability at room temperature are reported. Low switching powers and improved étalon uniformity are obtained.

DOI
10.1063/1.97779

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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE•Mar 1, 1991•0 citations
Nonlinear Fabry–Perot étalons of GaAs have been fabricated with metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy technology. The étalons operate in reflection mode, and have an epitaxially grown, rear dielectric mirror consisting of a stack of alternating AlAs/GaAlAs layers. Optical logic functions using a HeNe laser and optical bistability at room temperature are reported. Low switching powers and improved étalon uniformity are obtained.
A nonlinear Fabry-Perot etalon fabricated entirely by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) when operated as a pump-probe optical logic gate1 has shown 5:1 contrast with <20 pJ incident. The device should be especially well suited for optical bistability.2 However, this mode of operation has not yet been tried. The design consists of ten pairs of quarterwave thickness AlAs and GaAs layers grown on a GaAs substrate followed by a ~2-μm GaAs spacer layer and seven more quarterwave pairs. The mirrors formed by the quarter-wave stacks both have ~90% reflectivity. Fewer layers are needed on the second grown mirror due to the higher intrinsic reflectivity at the GaAs-air interface compared with that on the substrate side. The GaAs spacer was intentionally wedged to provide tunability of the transmission peak. The substrate in its present form is unsulted for transmitting either the pump or probe beams, so we used the reflected probe signal as the output.
Compact bistable GaAs étalons with epitaxial GaAs/AlAs Bragg reflectors have been fabricated by metallorganic vapor phase epitaxy. Their monolithic structure is convenient for further technological steps. It has been found that the good thermal conductivity of the mirror layers allows more efficient heat sinking and leads to improved switching characteristics. A 2:1 contrast ratio and a 20 ns switching time have been obtained in the reflective mode, with a 4 mW threshold power and a strongly reduced dependence of the switch-off threshold upon incident pulse duration.
Abstract An experimental study is made of GaAs/AlGaAs monolithic bistable etalons fabricated by metalorganic vapor‐phase epitaxy. Optical bistability is observed in the reflective mode, with a minimum threshold power of less than 3 mW and a switching contrast as high as 30: 1, with a cavity resonator designed to achieve simultaneously a high finesse and a high reflectivity contrast. The dispersive optical nonlinearity of the multiple quantum well active medium is measured as a function of the intracavity intensity, and a strong saturation behavior is observed. The origin of this saturation and its implication on the design of future devices is discussed briefly.
Epitaxial methods allow the fabrication of nonlinear interferomethc structures which include the mirrors and the GaAs Multiple Quantum Wells (MQW) nonlinear medium in a single crystal. This results in very compact nonlinear microcavities with typically 5im overall thickness. Optical bistability is observed in these structures at mW optical power. We review our latest experimental results on these structures including the observation of high contrast switching in the reflection mode the direct measurement of dispersive optical nonlinearities in MQWs evidencing their saturation behavior at high intensities. Finally we report external-beam switching experiments which allow to assess the potential of these structures as all-optical gates.