Realization of all-optical flip-flop using directionally coupled bistable laser diode

Author

Takenaka, Mitsuru ; Nakano, Yoshiaki

Author_Institution

Res. Center for Adv. Sci. & Technol., Univ. of Tokyo, Japan

Volume

16

Issue

1

fYear

2004

Firstpage

45

Lastpage

47

Abstract

A novel all-optical flip-flop device has been realized using a directionally-coupled bistable laser diode (DC-BLD). We have fabricated the DC-BLD by a conventional fabrication technique of LDs. To separate the adjacent electrodes of the directional coupler, an oblique electron-beam evaporation technique was developed. By this self-align process, the two adjacent waveguides of the directional coupler were electrically isolated without employing any additional lithography step. Using the fabricated DC-BLD, all-optical flip-flop has been demonstrated due to the nonlinear effects of the saturable absorber and the directional coupler. The flip-flop operation has been achieved with sufficiently small input optical power level around 0 dBm.

Keywords

electron beam deposition; etching; flip-flops; isolation technology; optical bistability; optical directional couplers; optical fabrication; optical logic; optical saturable absorption; photolithography; quantum well lasers; waveguide lasers; all-optical flip-flop device; directionally-coupled bistable laser diode; electrically isolated adjacent waveguides; nonlinear directional coupler; nonlinear saturable absorber effects; oblique electron-beam evaporation technique; optical memory; optical reset operation; photolithography; photonic networks; ridge-waveguide; selective wet etching; self-align process; strained MQW layer; Diode lasers; Directional couplers; Electrodes; Flip-flops; Lithography; Nonlinear optics; Optical bistability; Optical coupling; Optical device fabrication; Optical waveguides;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LPT.2003.818900

Filename

1255946