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Electronics Letters

Assessment of switching speed of optical bistability in semiconductor laser amplifiers

H.J. Westlake, M.J. Adams, M.J. O’Mahony

Published May 8, 1986• 36 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Measured hysteresis characteristics are presented for a bistable Fabry-Perot laser amplifier operating at high switching rates. The results show that optical bistability ceases to be evident at a repetition frequency of around 250 MHz, corresponding to a data rate of 500 Mbit/s, which indicates switching times commensurate with the carrier recombination time.

DOI
10.1049/el:19860369

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Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics•Jan 1, 1985•0 citations
Measured hysteresis characteristics are presented for a bistable Fabry-Perot laser amplifier operating at high switching rates. The results show that optical bistability ceases to be evident at a repetition frequency of around 250 MHz, corresponding to a data rate of 500 Mbit/s, which indicates switching times commensurate with the carrier recombination time.
Optical bistable elements may be attractive in all-optical regenerators as an alternative to electronic regenerators1 provided they are able to handle signals with bit rates in the Gbit/s range. The bistable Fabry-Perot (F.P.) laser amplifier has many desirable properties, e.g., optical gain, room temperature operation,, and low switching energy (fJ).2 Bistability at up to 250 Mbit/s has been predicted for antireflection coated laser amplifiers.1 Here we report measurements of switching times of ~1 ns for a 1.3-μm F.P. laser amplifier, which are verified numerically. For antireflection coated amplifiers, switching times of 230-250 ps, suggesting transmission rates of up to ~2 Gbit/s, are predicted.
Fabry-Perot semiconductor laser amplifiers (FPSLA) have potential applications for optical logic, because they display dispersive optical bistability which can be switched with microwatts of optical powers [1]. However, although the optical transition times are fast, the maximum clock frequency at which the bistability will operate is limited by the carrier recombination time. Consequently methods of reducing this time are important for high-speed logic applications [2]. One suggestion to reduce the recombination time is to operate the device at higher carrier densities, provided lasing action can be suppressed, e.g. by the use of a low-reflectivity coating on the facets [3]. In this paper we show experimentally how reducing the recombination time, by low-reflectivity coating the amplifier, increases the maximum clock frequency.
In all-optical switching systems bistable distributed-feedback (DFB) amplifiers are being used experimentally as memory cells and signal regenerators. In this frame a single section DFB amplifier (with one AR coated facet) operating around threshold at 1549 nm is pumped by a similar laser with a carefully controlled frequency detuning. The polarization controlled pump beam is modulated by a Mach-Zehnder switch (2.5 GHz bandwidth) to avoid source frequency chirp. The measurement of a pump reference and of the beam reflected from the amplifier is performed through a fiber directional coupler inserted between the two DFB diodes. Optical bistability has been observed both in transmission and in reflection for a sinewave modulated input in the 1-200 MHz frequency range. The output square wave exhibits up and down switching times lower than 1 ns and about 2 ns, respectively. The latter figure is consistent with the carrier recombination time in InGaAsP active structures, which is the main limit to the recovery time of bistable amplifiers. Work is in progress to investigate this feature in other types of amplifiers (e.g., multisection DFBs and quantum well structures).
We present experimental measurements of bistable characteristics for the case of a 1.55-/spl mu/m symmetric Fabry-Perot laser amplifier with a particularly rich variety of behavior for reflected signals. Three main forms of hysteresis loops are observed on reflection. The hysteresis loop changes from anticlockwise to clockwise hysteresis in the optical output-input characteristic when the drive current or initial phase detuning is changed. A "butterfly" hysteresis loop is observed experimentally at an optical input power as low as 300 /spl mu/W for a drive current equal to 94% of the lasing threshold. The dependence of the reflective optical bistability on drive current, initial phase detuning, and injected optical pewter has been investigated for the first time in an uncoated 1.55-/spl mu/m amplifier. Measurements of the device voltage shifts on switching reveal hysteresis loops which match those in the corresponding optical powers and which indicate the amount of gain saturation and nonlinear refraction responsible for bistability. An analytical model is used to describe the observed reflective bistability and to give insight into the detailed physical mechanisms responsible.
We demonstrate optically bistable (light switching light) operation in a room-temperature InGaAsP Fabry-Perot amplifier. The amplifier is an InGaAsP/InP laser structure biased at ~95% of its lasing threshold. It is switched with <3 μW of optical power provided by the mechanically chopped output of a quasi-single-mode InGaAsP/InP laser. The experimental apparatus is depicted in Fig, 1. A change in the refractive Index in the amplifier of only 5 × 10−4 is sufficient to cause switching. Input and output pulses from the nonlinear amplifier are shown in Fig. 2 when the source frequency is initially detuned by 14 GHz from the closest Fabry-Perot mode of the amplifier. Smaller switching powers are required at lesser detunings. The physical mechanism of the intensity-dependent change of the refractive index is thought to be the change in carrier density resulting from stimulated recombination of free carriers.