Abstract

Direct interfacing between single-mode optical fibers and GaAs nonlinear etalons is successfully demonstrated. The optical fibers used in our experiments are from AMP, Inc., with a core size of 10 µm. The ends of these fibers are polished and mounted in ceramic housings. The light source is a CR590 dye laser pumped by an argon-ion laser. The laser beam is modulated by an acoustooptic modulator to give pulses of several microseconds in duration. Laser light is coupled into a fiber by using a 10X microscope objective with a numerical aperture of 0.3, and the coupling loss is <3 dB. The nonlinear etalon used in the experiment is made by coating both sides of a 108-period 58-Å- 96-Å GaAs/AIGaAs multiple quantum well with 400-Å Ag, giving reflectivities of ~87 %. Optical bistability is observed when the nonlinear etalon is brought into contact with the fiber, with no lens between the output end of the fiber and etalon. A similar fiber is used to collect the output light from the etalon with an efficiency of >70%, suggesting that fiber-optic interconnects could be feasible in a digital optical processor.

© 1988 Optical Society of America