Siemens Aktiengesellschaft

Klaus-Dieter Muehlbauer

Hartmut Burghardt

The invention relates to a photo-laser transistor with a base-collector pn-junction biased in the non-conducting direction and a base-emitter pn-junction biased in the conducting direction. With the invention, the functions of optical to electronic conversion, amplification, electrical to optical conversion, and, in particular, that of an optical repeater are to be realized in one single semiconductor element. For this purpose, the invention provides that the base-emitter pn-junction is formed as laser diode, that the laser diode is driven with a base precurrent to approximately its threshold value, and the residual current, which needs to be made available for stepping over the threshold, stems from the amplified photocurrent of the base-emitter pn-junction. The photo-laser transistor according to the invention is applied, in particular, as optical repeater, optical amplifier, optical bus connection building block, optical sensor, wavelength converter, opto-electrical logic respectively opto-electrical switch.

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Groebenzell, Germany

Klaus-Dieter Muehlbauer