Strained layer Fabry-Perot device
AssigneeThe United States of America as represented by the United States Department of Energy
InventorsThomas M. Brennan, Ian J. Fritz, Burrell E. Hammons
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Abstract
An asymmetric Fabry-Perot reflectance modulator (AFPM) consists of an active region between top and bottom mirrors, the bottom mirror being affixed to a substrate by a buffer layer. The active region comprises a strained-layer region having a bandgap and thickness chosen for resonance at the Fabry-Perot frequency. The mirrors are lattice matched to the active region, and the buffer layer is lattice matched to the mirror at the interface. The device operates at wavelengths of commercially available semiconductor lasers.
Claims15
An asymmetric Fabry-Perot reflectance modulator (AFPM) consisting of an active region in an optical cavity between top and bottom mirrors, said bottom mirror being affixed to a substrate by a buffer layer, said modulator being formed only from layers of ternary materials resulting from the combination of pairs of three binary materials (A, B, C),
- at least two of said materials, (A, B) having different bandgaps,
- the third material (C) and at least one of said at least two materials (A and B) having different lattice constants, and
- the active region comprising a thermodynamically stable combination of quantum well and barrier layers of alternating strain having a free-standing lattice constant a.sub.0 matched to the lattice constant of the mirrors.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.