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Applied Physics Letters

Optical bistability using a directional coupler and a detector monolithically integrated in GaAs

Alain Carenco, L. Menigaux

Published Nov 15, 1980• 15 citations
Publisher

Abstract

An electro-optic directional coupler has been integrated on the same GaAs chip with a proton-implanted detector located in one of the output rib waveguide channels. The association of this monolithic device with an external electrical amplifier has allowed optical bistable operation to be demonstrated at 1.06 μm. With an amplifier gain equal to unity, the bistable device switches in about 1 μs, the optical switching energy being less than 1 nJ.

DOI
10.1063/1.91782

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Applied Physics Letters•Aug 24, 1987•8 citations
An electro-optic directional coupler has been integrated on the same GaAs chip with a proton-implanted detector located in one of the output rib waveguide channels. The association of this monolithic device with an external electrical amplifier has allowed optical bistable operation to be demonstrated at 1.06 μm. With an amplifier gain equal to unity, the bistable device switches in about 1 μs, the optical switching energy being less than 1 nJ.
An all-optical bistable device and an electro-optical bistable device, with performances approaching the fundamental statistical limits, are described. In the all-optical approach, the giant nonlinearities associated with bound excitons in CdS are exploited to demonstrate the lowest-switching-energy (< 4 pJ) all-optical bistable device. The device switches in less than 1 ns and fully recovers in less than 2 ns. These times are detector limited. A switching energy of less than 1 fJ is theoretically predicted for an optimized geometry. In the electro-optical approach, an InGaAsP/InP diode laser amplifier is used to demonstrate bistability with less than 6000 photons (< 8 X 10-16 J) incident on the device. The device switches in less than 1 ns and is cascadable since it has a gain of 100. It operates at room temperature and is compatible with diode laser sources.
Dispersive bistability arising from the carrier-dependence of the refractive index has been observed in semiconductor lasers operated just below threshold with a small injected optical signal. The minimum optical input required for switch-up is as low as 1 μW for InGaAsP amplifiers at 1.55 μm(1) and 1.3 μm(2) (cf 30 μW for GaAs devices(3)). As yet, reliable measurements of the dynamic response are not (4) available, although we predict recovery times to be on the order of carrier lifetimes, ie a few nanoseconds at room temperature. This contribution will review our experimental and theoretical work on 1.55 μm amplifier bistability and set it in the context of other semiconductor bistable optical devices.
Optical bistability in semiconductor laser amplifiers is particularly interesting because of the gain provided by the device. Small changes, in input power can result in large changes in amplifier gain, and this leads to possible applications in all-optical regenerators for transmission systems. Other possible applications include their use as optical switches and logic elements.1 Optical bistability in GaAs laser amplifiers operating at 850 nm has been reported previously.2 Here we report for the first time measured results at 1.5 μm with an InGaAsP device.
Photonic data transmission and processing require highly efficient all-optical elements for signal amplification, switching and data storage. It could be shown experimentally that semiconductor planar resonators can be envisaged as promising candidates [1]. In particular, optical bistability, that has been shown to exist in these configurations, opens a wide field of applications. Because the operating frequencies are near the band gap of the direct semiconductors used the nonlinearities are giant. Hence the critical power for nonlinear effects to occur is fairly moderate. In view of these advantages it might be worthwhile to study such resonators in a waveguide scheme because it can be included into integrated optics configurations. In planar resonators one has not to worry about the absorption, being extremely large near the gap, because the overall thickness is only a few micrometers and they are usually operated in reflection. The situation appears more involved in waveguides. Usually one prefers to exploit the transmitted signal in order to separate input and output channels. Moreover the efficiency of the distributed Bragg reflectors, surrounding the cavity, is usually some orders of magnitude less than that of conventional planar mirrors requiring rather long reflectors. Because the cavity length exceeds that of planar resonators considerably too one has to guarantee that the overwhelming part of the resonator is essentially transparent for the guided mode. This has of course the consequence that it does not contribute to any resonant nonlinear effect. Hence we propose a resonator that is only loaded by a thin layer of nonlinear but absorbing material (GaAs) in the cavity region (see Fig.1).