Optical bistability at 980 nm in a strained InGaAs/GaAs multiple quantum well microcavity with resonant periodic nonlinearity

摘要

We report on a novel monolithic allhyphen;optical bistable device operating at 980 nm, based on the dispersive optical nonlinearity of strained InGaAs/GaAs quantum wells located at the antinodes of the microcavity optical field. This design maximizes the interaction with the intracavity field and allowed to use only twelve quantum wells of 10 nm thickness. The first observation of allhyphen;optical bistability with strained InGaAs/GaAs quantum wells is reported, with a contrast ratio of 7:1 and a threshold intensity of 1 kW/cm2. The operating wavelength offers key advantages such as the substrate transparency and compatibility with vertical cavity surface emitting lasers.