Abstract

Spatial light modulators (SLMs) are an important component for neural and digital optical computing, photonic switching, and optical interconnections of electronic circuits. For optical neural computing and some photonic switching applications, the time required to write the SLM can be relatively long. However, for digital optical computing, optical interconnections, and other photonic switching applications, SLMs must operate as fast as possible. For these high speed applications, spatial light modulators based on the quantum confined Stark effect (QCSE)^[1] are a good choice. The inherent speed of the QCSE is extremely fast (~50-100s of femtoseconds)^[2]. In addition, waveguide modulators and normal incidence reflection modulators have been made with a 3 dB bandwidths as high as 20 GHz ^[3] and 5.5 GHz ^[4] respectively. To maximize the total throughput (number of channels times the bit rate of each channel) of an array of devices, each device must have a separate electrical access lead. In this paper, we present results on a 2 × 4 array of differential quantum well spatial light modulators, each with an individual access leads. Although the device array is not large, it was made using the same batch fabrication procedures ^[5] that have yielded symmetric SEED arrays as large as 64 × 32^[6], thus the fabrication techniques are extendible to making larger spatial light modulator arrays. The frequency response of the devices had a 3dB bandwidth limit greater than 3 GHz as modulators and greater than 4 GHz as detectors.

© 1990 Optical Society of America