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IEE Proceedings J Optoelectronics

Optical bistability in distributed feedback semiconductor laser amplifiers

M.J. Adams, Richard R. Wyatt

Published Jan 1, 1987• 37 citations
Publisher

Abstract

New theoretical and experimental results are presented for optical bistability in distributed feedback amplifiers at 1.5 μm. The onset of bistability occurs at input powers as low as 1 μW, a factor of about 1000 times less than the input predicted for passive DFB structures. The transient response exhibits a large spike as the amplifier goes through a resonance, in good agreement with the theoretical prediction.

DOI
10.1049/ip-j.1987.0008

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New theoretical and experimental results are presented for optical bistability in distributed feedback amplifiers at 1.5 μm. The onset of bistability occurs at input powers as low as 1 μW, a factor of about 1000 times less than the input predicted for passive DFB structures. The transient response exhibits a large spike as the amplifier goes through a resonance, in good agreement with the theoretical prediction.
We investigate the bistable response of a traveling-wave semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) connected bidirectionally to a distributed feedback (DFB) laser diode. By contrast to dispersive DFB amplifiers, bistability is possible for a broad wavelength range of the injected optical signal. A theoretical analysis clarifies the origin of the phenomenon and the conditions under which it occurs. Numerical simulations and experimental results confirm the theoretical analysis. Experimentally obtained step heights up to 25 dB and widths of the bistability domain of 1-4 dB have been found
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.
A time-dependent theory of optical bistability is developed and applied to laser amplifiers and passive semiconductor etalons. Results of the theory show an output intensity spike in switch-up which occurs after a time delay determined largely by the carrier recombination time, and before which the transition is unstable. Although for passive etalons the spike is rather broad (of order 1 ns for parameters appropriate to GaAs at 0.85 μm or InGaAsP at 1.55 μm) and of low amplitude, for amplifiers it is roughly an order of magnitude narrower and higher in amplitude. As a consequence, it is predicted that clock speeds for semiconductor bistable switching elements will be limited to rates commensurate with the carrier recombination time, not only for switch-down operations (as already well known) but also for switch-up operations.
In this paper, a distributed feedback (DFB) semiconductor laser amplifier (SLA) with nonuniform grating is studied for optical bistability behavior. The investigation is focused on distributed coupling coefficient (DCC) structures which have a corrugation with nonuniform depth along the cavity. A modified implementation of transfer-matrix method is used to take gain saturation and coupling coefficient variation along the DCC DFB structure into account. Wavelength dependence of optical bistability and the effect of gain-tuning in DCC DFB SLA's are demonstrated.