The role of field enhanced emission from deep level defects in GaAs in optical switches

The authors discuss in detail the current progress of their work in building an appropriate computer model for a bulk GaAs optical switch. The literature of electric-field-dependent physical mechanisms involving deep level defects including the Poole-Frenkel effect, phonon-assisted tunneling, and field enhanced recombination is reviewed in detail. In order to examine the role of these effects, a one-dimensional, self-consistent, finite difference, time explicit modeling code from LLNL is used. The role of the enhancement of the electron emission rate due to an applied electric field at a deep level defect is examined. Enhancement rates for the Poole-Frenkel effect and the phonon-assisted tunneling effect are identified