All-optical phase modulation based on intersub-band birefringence in GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well waveguides

Author

Vagos, P. ; Moussa, Z. ; Julien, F.H. ; Lourtioz, J.M. ; Planel, R.

Author_Institution

Inst. d´´Electron. Fondamentale, Univ. de Paris-Sud, Orsay, France

Volume

31

Issue

3

fYear

1995

fDate

2/2/1995 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

226

Lastpage

228

Abstract

All-optical phase modulation of 10 μm wavelength radiation based on photoinduced intersub-band birefringence in a GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well waveguide is demonstrated. The undoped multiquantum well layer is inserted in an infra-red slab waveguide. Band-to-band optical pumping is used to activate the infra-red intersub-band absorption and dispersion. As a result, TM and TE infra-red guiding modes present different attenuation and phase retardation as a function of the optical pump power. Photoinduced phase retardation between TM and TE modes of 20° has been measured with a pump power as low as 40 mW. Applications to efficient all-optical phase modulation devices are discussed

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; aluminium compounds; birefringence; gallium arsenide; nonlinear optics; optical modulation; optical pumping; optical waveguides; phase modulation; semiconductor quantum wells; 10 micron; 40 mW; GaAs-AlGaAs; TE IR guiding modes; TM IR guiding modes; all-optical phase modulation; attenuation; band-to-band optical pumping; infrared intersub-band absorption; infrared intersub-band dispersion; infrared slab waveguide; intersub-band birefringence; optical pump power; photoinduced phase retardation; quantum well waveguides; undoped multiquantum well layer;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electronics Letters

Publisher

iet

ISSN

0013-5194

Type

jour

DOI

10.1049/el:19950135

Filename

362612