Effect of saturable index change on all-optical logic operations in a passive vertical cavity semiconductor saturable absorber

Abstract

Semiconductor multiple quantum wells (QWs) have saturable absorption and saturable refractive index change properties. When it is embedded within a reflective Fabry-Perot cavity, the device shows forward and inverse saturation reflectivity for a radiation at cavity resonance wavelength with input intensity around the impedance matching point. Consideration of non-linear index change increases the extinction of forward saturation characteristics of the device. However its application in logic devices is very limited. Whereas, the inverse characteristics for which a number of logic devices can be proposed is severely affected in its extinction because of the consideration of non-linear index change. Here the authors optimise the parameters of vertical cavity semiconductor saturable absorber for the static and dynamic device performance of all-optical logic operations based on inverse saturation characteristics with both dispersive and absorptive saturation into consideration. The authors obtain an extinction of almost 77.5% with input intensity of the order of saturation intensity of a multiple QWs. The novelty of this work lies in the observation that the saturation of non-linear index of refraction has enormous effect on the characteristics of logic operations, which is not addressed in earlier reports. It is also observed that the detrimental effect of non-linear index saturation can be overcome by proper absorber parameters.