Abstract

The fundamental building block of modern electronic computing; junction field effect transistors, are essentially voltage controlled resistance based switches, which operate on the basis that electric charge flows through a semiconducting channel between "source" and "drain" terminals. By applying a reverse bias voltage to a "gate" terminal, the channel is "pinched", so that the electric current is impeded. Here, we demonstrate the optical analogue of such devices relying on photoinduced effects within chalcogenide fibers. As a proof of principle, using the optical fiber as the channel, we demonstrate both single and multiwavelength operation in the visible part of the spectrum, essential to such a device for future realisation of all-optical logic gates. Furthermore, we go on to integrate these class of transistors with the silica based industry standard erbium doped fiber amplifiers (EDFA), showing higher gain operation at λ = 1.5µm (Figure 1).

© 2015 IEEE