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Applied Optics

Proposal for a compact design for real-time optical bistability switching via a semiconductor cavity containing quantum wells

Mostafa Sahrai, Solmaz Ebadollahi-Bakhtevar, Hamed Sattari

Published Sep 30, 2016• 2 citations

Abstract

A compact design for semiconductor cavities including coupled AlGaN/AlGaAs quantum wells is proposed for all-optical switching of the bistability process. First, physical and geometrical parameters are optimized to engineer the conducting electrons' energy levels in the quantum wells. Then, finite element simulations based on Schrödinger equations are executed to estimate the states of the charge carriers for AlGaN/AlGaAs as the active region. Next, the optical coupling and pumping fields are applied to the active region to both initiate the bistability and facilitate its real-time control. The Maxwell-Bloch approach based on rotating-wave approximation is employed to analyze the optimal conditions for controlling the behavior of optical bistability (OB). It is found that the threshold of OB can be optimized to have low values by tuning the intensity of coupling fields and the rate of an incoherent pumping field. This provides a fast real-time switching facility to control output intensity of the systems. The proposed scheme could have potential applications in optical memories, in which it is paramount to have active control over the readout of the system's quantum states. Thanks to the high nonlinear response of semiconductors, the featured device would be a prospective candidate for on-chip ultrasubluminal wave propagation studies and narrowband real-time switching and filtering applications.

DOI: 10.1364/ao.55.008107

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A compact design for semiconductor cavities including coupled AlGaN/AlGaAs quantum wells is proposed for all-optical switching of the bistability process. First, physical and geometrical parameters are optimized to engineer the conducting electrons' energy levels in the quantum wells. Then, finite element simulations based on Schrödinger equations are executed to estimate the states of the charge carriers for AlGaN/AlGaAs as the active region. Next, the optical coupling and pumping fields are applied to the active region to both initiate the bistability and facilitate its real-time control. The Maxwell-Bloch approach based on rotating-wave approximation is employed to analyze the optimal conditions for controlling the behavior of optical bistability (OB). It is found that the threshold of OB can be optimized to have low values by tuning the intensity of coupling fields and the rate of an incoherent pumping field. This provides a fast real-time switching facility to control output intensity of the systems. The proposed scheme could have potential applications in optical memories, in which it is paramount to have active control over the readout of the system's quantum states. Thanks to the high nonlinear response of semiconductors, the featured device would be a prospective candidate for on-chip ultrasubluminal wave propagation studies and narrowband real-time switching and filtering applications.

Optical bistability (OB) and optical multistability (OM) are investigated in a triple coupled quantum wells system inside a semiconductor cavity sandwiched by distributed Bragg reflector mirrors. By proper manipulation of the optical and electrical parameters, the behaviors of OB and OM can be efficiently controlled. We show that, by tuning the tunneling rates between the quantum wells, the threshold and hysteresis cycle of OB and OM can be engineered. The effect of the incoherent pump field as well as the cooperation parameter on creation of OB is also discussed.

Summary form only given. Optical bistability is basically a nonlinear response of the medium (here confined electrons in a QW) to an external oscillating field, in which there are three possible responses (two stable and one unstable). Which one the system chooses depends on the history of the adiabatically varying control parameters (usually electric field amplitude). The OB we consider is an intrinsic feature of the electron gas in the QW, and does not rely on the use of a Fabry-Perot resonator. Another feature of OB is that it is not a ubiquitous nonlinear response such as superharmonic generation; it can be observed only at some restricted values of the parameters. Furthermore the nonlinear response changes abruptly from one value of the output to the other. This effect can be measured by detecting the different transmitted intensities of the FIR field to the same input field. These features of OB make it a relevant choice for applications to optical switching and the realization of optical logic gates.

In this paper, we discuss a possibility to realize the optical bistability in a rotating semiconductor micro-cavity system. To study the mean cavity photon number profile, we have obtained stationary solution by solving Heisenberg–Langevin equations of motion. In a rotating semiconductor micro-cavity system, bistability is observed when the cavity is driven externally in one direction but not the other direction. The bistable behavior is possible for strong coupling regime, and this can be controlled by hopping strength, decay rates and pump power. The photon profile also shows tunable zero intensity window. The system may be useful to design all-optical switch and optical flip–flop i.e., optical memory element, which would be faster in applications and compact in size.

In this study, we theoretically investigate the optical bistability (OB) in hybrid triple-cavity optomechanical systems (OMSs) composed of three coupled cavities (two optical cavities and one optomechanical cavity) in the presence of semiconductor quantum dot molecules and a Kerr medium with a Kerr coefficient of χ when the optomechanical cavity is driven by a pump laser with frequency ωp and the amplitude Ep, which results in optical pressure on the movable mirror of the OMS. The dynamical equations of motion for this triple-cavity hybrid system in the steady state limit are solved using the Heisenberg-Langevin equations to achieve OB. We have demonstrated that it is possible to adjust both the width of the hysteresis loop and the switching threshold by controlling the Kerr coefficient . t is found that by properly tuning the physical parameters, the bistable thresholds of the system can be switched on and switched off, which is useful for designing and optimizing sensitive all-optical switching .

Under the non-resonant condition, we investigated the optical bistability (OB) in a three-level quantum well system inside a unidirectional ring cavity. We find that the incoherent pumping fields and the quantum interference induced by incoherent pumping fields can affect the optical bistability dramatically, which can be used to manipulate efficiently the threshold intensity and the hysteresis loop. These results are achieved by applying the two incoherent pumping fields, so they are very different from the conventional schemes that coherent driving fields are used to control the optical bistability. Thus, it may provide some new possibilities for technological applications in optoelectronics and solid-state quantum information science.

We study optical bistability (OB) behavior based on intersubband transitions in asymmetric double quantum wells (QWs) where tunneling-induced quantum inference can be observed. The system interacts with a probe-laser field and a control laser field by means of a unidirectional ring cavity. We show that OB can be controlled efficiently by tuning the coupling strength of the tunneling, the Fano-type interference, and the intensity of the control field. The influence of the frequency detuning of the probe and control fields on the electronic OB behavior is also discussed. This investigation can be used for the optimal design of semiconductor QW systems to achieve fast and low-threshold all-optical switches, which is much more practical than that in an atomic system because of its flexible design and the controllable interference strength.