Observation of counterclockwise, clockwise and butterfly bistabilty in 1550 nm VCSOAs

Christopher F. Marki, Douglas R. Jorgesen, Haijiang Zhang, Pengyue Wen, Sadik C. Esener

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

30 Scopus citations

Abstract

In this paper, we report counter-clockwise, clockwise, and, for the first time to our knowledge, butterfly bistability in 1550 nm Vertical Cavity Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers (VCSOA). Bistable operation is experimentally observed for bias currents ranging from 66-122% of threshold with switching powers as low as 2 μW. These switching powers are two orders of magnitude lower than any previous results in 1550 nm VCSOAs. These switching powers are consistent with previous reports on optical bistability in 850 nm VCSOAs and provide an important step towards the realization of small footprint, low power optical logic/switching elements in the 1550 nm wavelength band.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)4953-4959
Number of pages7
JournalOptics express
Volume15
Issue number8
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 16 2007
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

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