Optical signal routing using emission packet positioning of semiconductor heterostructure

Author

Tsukamoto, H. ; Boone, T.D. ; Han, J. ; Woodall, J.M.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Yale Univ., New Haven, CT, USA

Volume

17

Issue

7

fYear

2005

fDate

7/1/2005 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1411

Lastpage

1413

Abstract

We present a novel optical switching technique utilizing emission packet positioning of semiconductor heterostructure. A modulation-doped p-AlGaAs-GaAs heterostructure is employed to control spontaneous emission packet positioning with electric fields. Emission packets generated by optical input signals are brought over 150 μm with electric fields, so the output fibers can detect the emission intensity as signals. The first-order analysis indicates that the drift velocity of minority electrons in GaAs limits the detectable maximum data rate and nanoseconds timescale signal routing operation at 20 Gb/s is possible at an electron drift velocity of 2×10/sup 7/ cm/s.

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; aluminium compounds; gallium arsenide; gallium compounds; optical fibre communication; optical modulation; optical switches; packet switching; semiconductor devices; spontaneous emission; telecommunication network routing; 20 Gbit/s; 2E7 cm/s; AlGaAs-GaAs; drift velocity; electric fields; emission intensity; emission packet positioning; emission packets; minority electrons; modulation-doped heterostructure; nanosecond timescale signal routing; optical signal routing; optical switching; output fibers; p-AlGaAs-GaAs heterostructure; semiconductor heterostructure; spontaneous emission; Electron mobility; Electron optics; Epitaxial layers; Optical modulation; Optical packet switching; Routing; Signal analysis; Signal generators; Spontaneous emission; Stimulated emission; Emission packet positioning; optical fiber communication; optical signal routing; semiconductor optical switch;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LPT.2005.848330

Filename

1453627