Abstract

Several recent experiments have verified the existence of relatively large refractive nonlinearities in the region of half the band gap of AlGaAs and GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well structures^1-3. Working in this wavelength region has several advantages; it minimizes the effects of two-photon absorption (TPA), which has limited the usefulness of previous devices, it gives rise to devices with very low linear loss and hence high throughput, finally, it also allows the material to be chosen so that the operating wavelength is in the low-loss, 1.55 μm, telecommunications window.

© 1992 Optical Society of America