Ⅲ-Ⅴ族化合物半导体量子阱光调制器

Ⅲ-Ⅴ Compound Semiconductor Multiple Quantum Well Light Modulators

利用Ⅲ-V族化合物半导体量子阱材料的量子限制Stark效应制作的电吸收型光调制器具有调制电压低,调制速度快、器件尺寸小、结构简单并易于同半导体激光器集成等优点,适于进行高性能、高速度的信息编码和处理,在光通信、光计算和光互联中具有广泛的应用前景。本文以光通信为主要应用背景,论述了量子阱调制器的开关比和调制电压、插入损耗、调制带宽、频率啁啾等各项技术指标,指出了量子阱调制器存在的工作波长范围窄和饱和吸收等主要问题并讨论了可能的解决途径,最后讨论了量子阱调制器在光电子集成,主要是半导体激光器和量子阱调制器单片集成方面的应用、发展情况和存在问题。

Ⅲ-Ⅴ compound semiconductor multiple quantum well (MQW) electroabsorption modulators based on the quantum confined Stark effect(QCSE)have the advantage of low modulation voltage, high speed, small size, simple device structure and easy integration with semiconductor lasers, so they are suitable for high quality and high speed information coding and processing, and have very wide application potential in optical communication, optical computing and optical interconnection. In this paper, taking the optical communication as the mainapplication background, we discuss the main technical specifications of MQW modulators such as on-off ratio, modulation voltage, insertion loss, modulation bandwidth, frequency chirping and so on. Some problems in MQW modulators such as narrow operation wavelength range and saturated absorption and their possible solutions are also pointed out. Finally, the research situation of MQW modulator in optoelectronic integration, especially in the monolithic integration of laser diodes and MQW modulators are reviewed.