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Journal of the Optical Society of America B

Effect of pixelation on the switching speeds of InSb bistable elements

Harvey Richardson, E. Abraham

Published Jun 1, 1990• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Optically bistable devices may be physically pixelated, and this may reduce cross talk or power requirements. When the bistability is of electronic origin, the rate of recombination of carriers at the surface is of great importance. We show how the surface recombination affects the speed of the element, first for a one-dimensional model and then for a cylindrical rod pixel with recombination at the curved surface. In some cases pixelated and unpixelated elements operate at the same speed, which indicates that the surface recombination in the former is equivalent to the diffusive loss from the latter.

DOI
10.1364/josab.7.001051

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Optically bistable devices may be physically pixelated, and this may reduce cross talk or power requirements. When the bistability is of electronic origin, the rate of recombination of carriers at the surface is of great importance. We show how the surface recombination affects the speed of the element, first for a one-dimensional model and then for a cylindrical rod pixel with recombination at the curved surface. In some cases pixelated and unpixelated elements operate at the same speed, which indicates that the surface recombination in the former is equivalent to the diffusive loss from the latter.
We present an analysis of the effect of surface recombination on the behaviour of optically bistable and transphasor devices. We derive analytic expressions for the longitudinal carrier profiles and the input/output intensity characteristics for a plane wave input. We also examine the frequency response of such devices and find qualitative agreement with experimental results. Finally, we present preliminary calculations modelling bistable devices including both longitudinal and transverse carrier diffusion, and surface recombination.
For reasons of speed and economy, applications of dispersive optical bistability are likely to concentrate on solid-state devices of small volume. In this paper we will discuss the modelling and optimisation of such devices, particularly in relation to possible pixel size and spatial resolution. Diffusion (1,2), rather than diffraction (3), is the dominant transverse coupling mechanism in the two current solid-state systems (InSb etalon (4) and ZnSe-spaced interference filter (5)), capable of cw hold and optical address, but we will argue that in an optimised device diffraction and diffusion will be equally important.
The effect of the temperature dependence of the free-electron radiative recombination time on the onset of absorption optical bistability has been considered within the point-charge model. The existence of multistable states and the possibility of reducing by tens of times the switching temperatures and intensities and the differences between their corresponding values have been revealed. This permits one to reduce considerably the energy expended per switching event and, hence, to increase the speed of response of a bistable system.
Abstract For reasons of speed and economy, applications of optical bistability are likely to concentrate on solid-state devices of small volume. In this paper we discuss the modelling and optimization of such devices. We report calculations of surface reflectivity optimization in the presence of absorption, and show that optical bistability in reflection offers significant advantages over transmission. Small transverse dimensions, i.e. dense packing, are limited by cross-talk between neighbouring devices. We show that diffraction and diffusion give rise to qualitatively similar effects
The dependence of switching power upon input beam spot radius for an optically bistable InSb étalon has been measured. The results show that the irradiance required for switching increases as the spot radius is reduced. There is no evidence of any lower limit to the switching power, even for spot radii much less than the ambipolar diffusion length. Studies of the transmitted beam intensity profile in the near-field demonstrate the role of diffusion in our observations. The implications of our results for digital optical processing are briefly discussed.