Versatile bistable optical switches and latching optical logicusing integrated photothyristors and surface-emitting lasers

摘要

The authors describe a novel family of versatile, cascadable,optical switches with different functional characteristics-latching,non-latching, and bistable-using a single epitaxial structure based onthe monolithic integration of photothyristors and surface-emittinglasers. High-performance optical switching characteristics have beenachieved for all three switch archetypes. The authors also demonstratethe AND, OR, NAND, NOR and INVERT optical logic functions usingmonolithic switch structures