Low-power optical bistability and multistability in a self-electro-optic silicon interferometer

A novel hybrid semiconductor device is presented which shows optical bistability and a clear optical multistability at milliwatt input powers. Experimentally, a silicon etalon is used as a Fabry-Perot interferometer where an electric field is additionally applied by using integrated electrical contacts. At 1.06 μm the device exhibits the combined properties of a photodetector and an optical modulator. Due to this self-electro-optic effect a large optical nonlinearity is achieved which is theoretically attributed to electrical and optical heating of the sample.