Lucent Technologies Inc.

Kartik Srinivasan

Federico Capasso

Alfred Yi Cho

Deborah Lee Sivco

Oskar Jon Painter

Claire F Gmachl

Donald M Tennant

Arthur Mike Sergent

Mariano Troccoli

Raffaele Colombelli

An optoelectronic transducer comprises a unipolar, intraband active region and a micro-cavity resonator. The resonator includes a 2D array of essentially equally spaced regions that exhibits resonant modes. Each of the spaced regions has a depth that extends through the active region and has an average refractive index that is different from that of the active region. The refractive index contrast, the spacing of the spaced regions, and the dimensions of the spaced regions are mutually adapted so that the array acts as a micro-cavity resonator and so that at least one frequency of the resonant modes of the array falls within the spectrum of an optoelectronic parameter of the active region (i.e., the gain spectrum where the transducer is a laser; the absorption spectrum where the transducer is a photodetector). In a first embodiment, the transducer is an ISB laser, whereas in a second embodiment it is a unipolar, intraband photodetector. In other embodiments, the laser is a surface-emitting ISB laser and the photodetector is a vertically-illuminated detector. In another embodiment, a nonlinear optical material is optically coupled to the micro-cavity resonator, which in one case allows an ISB laser to exhibit bistable operation.

Unipolar, intraband optoelectronic transducers with micro-cavity resonators

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Pasadena, CA, United States of America

Kartik Srinivasan