Optical properties of ion irradiated and annealed InGaAs/GaAs quantum wells and semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors

摘要

Optical properties of Ni+ irradiated and thermally annealed InGaAs/GaAs multiple quantum wells and semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors (SESAMs) have been studied using photoluminescence (PL) and non-linear reflectivity measurements. Rapid decrease of PL intensity and lifetime with increasing irradiation dose was accompanied by undesirable degradation of the non-linear optical properties of SESAMs. However, some of the irradiation-created defects could be removed and the non-linear optical properties improved by rapid thermal annealing. The combination of ion irradiation and annealing provided a selective method for controlling the absorption recovery time of SESAMs while preserving the non-linear properties. Irradiation with 10(12) cm(-2) of 6 MeV Ni+ ions and 1 s annealing at 400 degrees C led to an absorption recovery time of similar to 1 ps while the modulation depth, the non-saturable losses and the saturation fluence were all close to their as-grown values.