MONOLITHIC OPTOELECTRONIC SWITCH BASED ON THE INTEGRATION OF A GAAS ALGAAS HETEROJUNCTION BIPOLAR-TRANSISTOR AND A GAAS VERTICAL-CAVITY SURFACE-EMITTING LASER/

We describe the design and the first experimental demonstration of a m onolithic integrated optoelectronic switch combining a GaAs/AlGaAs het erojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) with a vertical-cavity surface-em itting laser (VCSEL). The switch has high current gain (500-700), low power dissipation (27 and 55 mW dc at optical output levels of 0.4 and 1.2 mW, respectively), and a high optical-to-electrical conversion ef ficiency (150 W/A) under dc bias conditions, thus providing a high-per formance electrical-to-optical interface for high-speed optical interc onnections.