Abstract

Optoelectronic integrated circuits (OEICs) are expected to perform a broad range of high-performance functions in optical interconnects, optical signal processors, and, eventually, optical computers. Performance advantages are also expected for optical switching matrices and high-speed optoelectronic repeaters. The incompatibility of electronic and optical devices usually requires additive growth techniques, which the layer structures are grown in sequence (fabrication is by selective removal), or by multiple growth techniques, in which layer sequences are grown selectively by removal of the previous sequence. We describe a new approach in which a single high precision molecular-beam epitaxial growth provides a single-quantum-well inversion-channel structure from which lasers, detectors, and transistors are formed with a single device processing sequence. In this approach the optical source detector and transistor are, in fact, the same device structure which is used differently, depending on its application. The transistor is the heterostructure field-effect transistor (HFET) and the detector is the heterostructure field-effect detector (HFED). The laser is a bistable switching device with large optical and electrical gain or is the three-terminal HFET laser. The operation and latest results on all of these devices will be presented.

© 1990 Optical Society of America