C. Coriasso et al., BUTTERFLY BISTABILITY IN AN INGAAS INP MULTIPLE-QUANTUM-WELL WAVE-GUIDE WITH DISTRIBUTED-FEEDBACK/, Applied physics letters, 67(5), 1995, pp. 585-587
We report the experimental observation of butterfly bistability in an
InGaAs/InP multiple-quantum well waveguide with a distributed feedback
grating, under cw operation and at sub-milliwatt input power. Plasma
effects on the excitonic optical properties in multiple-quantum well s
tructures are the basis of the observed bistability. Insight provided
by a simple coupled-mode description of the device and by many-body th
eory of the held-matter interaction is used both for device design and
for interpretation of the results. In particular, the unconventional
shape of the hysteresis is due to increased optical absorption at high
injected optical power. (C) 1995 American Institute of Physics.