Optical characteristics of PnpN optical thyristor operating at 1.55 mu m

Abstract

InGaAs/lnP multiple quantum well (MQW) PnpN depleted optical thyristors (DOTs) operating at 1.55 mum are proposed and fabricated. To analyze their switching characteristics, we simulate nonlinear s-shape current-voltage curves using the finite difference method (FDM) associated with the current-oriented method. Using the FDM, we calculate the effects of such parameters as doping concentration and the thicknesses of the outer and inner layers of the thyristor to determine an optimized structure in the view of fast and low-power-consuming operation. With these results, we fabricate waveguide- and vertical-type InGaAs/InP MQW PnpN DOTs. The waveguide-type DOT shows sufficient nonlinear s-shape I-V characteristics with a switching voltage of 4.03 V and a holding voltage of 1.77 V, and spontaneous emission along the waveguide. The current-voltage characteristics of the vertical-type DOT are shown very well under 150 muW of input power, while the s-shape disappears at 200 muW. (C) 2003 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.