Abstract

Absorption-based light modulators are attractive because they can be made compact and in high densities, operating with light normal to the plane of the device. The intrinsic power dissipation of such a modulator is simply the absorbed optical power, which (neglecting radiative recombination) must be dissipated in the device. However, most of the total dissipation in electrically-driven multiple quantum well (MQW) modulators operating with light incident normal to the device plane is non-intrinsic, resulting from motion of photo-generated carriers in externally applied electric fields. For example, in a pin MQW device biased to 5 V, motion of photo-generated electron-hole pairs through the total potential= V + V_bi deposits about 6.3 eV of energy, 5 eV of which is non-intrinsic. Minimizing the overall dissipation in these devices is important, because it ultimately determines the packing density and the maximum optical input power.

© 1993 Optical Society of America