HYBRID OPTOELECTRONIC DEVICE WITH MULTIPLE BISTABLE OUTPUTS

PABLO A. COSTANZO CASO; YIYE JIN; MICHAEL GEHL; SERGIO GRANIERI; AZAD SIAHMAKOUN

Journal of Physics Conference Series

IOP Publishing Ltd

Año: 2011 p. 1 - 11

1742-6588

Optoelectronic circuits which exhibit optical and electrical bistability with hysteresis behavior are proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The systems are based on a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA), a bipolar junction transistor (BJT), PIN photodiodes (PD) and a laser diode externally modulated with an integrated electro-absorption modulator (LD-EAM). The device operates based on two independent phenomena leading to electrical bistability and optical bistability. The electrical bistability is due to the series connection of two p-i-n structures (SOA, BJT or PD) in reverse bias. The optical bistability is result of the quantum confined Stark effect (QCSE) in the multi-quantum well (MQW) structure in the intrinsic region of the device. This effect produces the optical modulation of the transmitted light through the SOA or reflected from the PD. Finally, because the optical transmission of the SOA (in reverse bias) and the reflected light from the PD are so small, a LD-EAM modulated by the voltage across these devices are employed to obtain a higher output optical power. Experiments show that the maximum switching frequency is in MHz range and the rise/fall times lower than 1 us. The temporal response is mainly limited by the electrical capacitance of the devices and the parasitic inductances of the connecting wires. The effects of these components can be reduced in current integration technologies.