PIXELS CONSISTING OF A SINGLE VERTICAL-CAVITY LASER THYRISTOR AND A DOUBLE VERTICAL-CAVITY PHOTOTRANSISTOR

Bidirectionally cascadable optical pixels are proposed that consist of a single vertical cavity surface emitting laser thyristor and a doubl e vertical cavity phototransistor. Despite almost identical layer stru ctures, each device characteristic can be independently optimized by i ntroducing a lambda/2-spacer layer into the phototransistor section. A lasing threshold of 0.8 mA and a slope efficiency of 0.25 W/A are obt ained for the laser-thyristor, and a flat-topped photocurrent spectrum over 30 Angstrom and a photocurrent gain of 70 A/W are obtained for t he phototransistor at the resonant wavelength. This paper demonstrates the possibility of monolithic integration using thermal desorption an d a regrowth technique and the suitability of these devices for massiv ely parallel optical interconnections.