NONLINEAR INGAAS-INGAASP SINGLE-QUANTUM-WELL ALL-OPTICAL SWITCH - THEORY AND EXPERIMENTS

A detailed theory for the operation of a guided wave all-optical switc h is presented and compared with experimental results, The switch expl oits the two polarization-dependent band-edges of an InGaAs-InGaAsP si ngle-quantum-well embedded in an InP waveguide and the dependence of r efractive index on carrier density, This semiconductor all-optical non linear dichroic (SAND) device is potentially capable of operating at r epetition rates up to similar to 50 GHz, The model which has been deve loped agrees well with the experiments acid has been used to determine the optimum design and operating conditions for the device. In partic ular, it predicts that a gain of 23, with 54% modulation depth, should be achievable in realistic experimental conditions.