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Electronics Letters

True-CW operation of GaAs bistable etalon with electronic optical nonlinearity

Dominic J. Goodwill, Andy C. Walker, A.H. Kean, Colin R Stanley

Published Aug 13, 1992• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

An all-epitaxial GaAs/GaAlAs optically bistable Fabry-Perot etalon, designed to maximise the band-edge resonant electronic nonlinearity relative to unwanted thermal effects, has been demonstrated to be capable of being held CW in either of the bistable states. Switch times of <40 ns were recorded together with a critical switch power of <700 μW.

DOI
10.1049/el:19921018

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An all-epitaxial GaAs/GaAlAs optically bistable Fabry-Perot etalon, designed to maximise the band-edge resonant electronic nonlinearity relative to unwanted thermal effects, has been demonstrated to be capable of being held CW in either of the bistable states. Switch times of <40 ns were recorded together with a critical switch power of <700 μW.
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.
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.