Asymmetric Fabry-Perot modulators with an InGaAs/AlGaAs active region

Abstract

Strained layer superlattices have been used as the active region in asymmetric Fabry-Perot cavity optical modulators. The active layer of the Fabry-Perot modulator consisted of a 50 period In_0.15 Ga_0.85As/Al_0.30Ga_0.70As (10nm/10nm) superlattice. These quantum wells operate at typical wavelength of around 960 nm. By varying the length of the Fabry-Perot cavity in the modulator by including AlGaAs space layers of different thicknesses in the cavity, it is shown experimentally that both normally on and normally off devices can be obtained using the same stack of quantum wells. For the first type of device operation, a maximum contrast ratio of 8.3 dB could be measured for a reverse voltage of 7 V at 969 nm, while for the second type, a maximum of 8.9 dB at 957 nm was obtained for a 20 V reverse voltage. Using the same structure with an extra Bragg reflector on top of the quantum well layers to increase the surface reflection, a device with a higher finesse of the cavity was obtained. A maximum contrast ratio of 11.5 dB was measured for a reverse bias voltage of 30 V at 978 nm, with an insertion loss of −4.2dB.