Bistable Reflective Etalon (BRET)
Abstract
This project designed, fabricated, and characterized normal-incidence etalon structures at 1550 nm wavelength operation for application, as bistable elements, to photonic analog-to-digital conversion. The semiconductor devices consist of planar multi-quantum well saturable absorbers situated within an etalon defined by epitaxially grown reflective distributed Bragg reflector mirrors. Two iterations were completed and characterized in a transmissive configuration of greatest interest to Air Force Research Laboratories. Nonlinear transmission was observed. Bistability could not be obtained. Detailed modeling showed that thermal mechanisms override the quantum well nonlinearity, even at sub-nsec time scales, owing to the very small size of the etalon (several microns). However, waveguide configurations, with longer optical paths (hundreds of microns or larger), are well-suited for bistability, as demonstrated both through modeling and experimental results. Results of this effort suggest that the main obstacle to bistability in the BRET structure was heating effects. It is concluded that a future approach is to use bistable ridge waveguides instead of bistable vertical cavities. Bistability has been observed in such devices fabricated for other purposes.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 2003
- Accession Number
- ADA418753
Entities
People
- Joseph H. Abeles
- Zane Shellenbarger
Organizations
- Sarnoff Corporation