Teissier J, Laurent S, Manquest C, Sirtori C, Bousseksou A, Coudevylle J R, Colombelli R, Beaudoin G, Sagnes I
Laboratoire Matériaux et Phénomènes Quantiques, Université Paris Diderot-CNRS, UMR 7162, Paris, France.
Opt Express. 2012 Jan 16;20(2):1172-83. doi: 10.1364/OE.20.001172.
We have demonstrated an integrated three terminal device for the modulation of the complex refractive index of a distributed feedback quantum cascade laser (QCL). The device comprises an active region to produce optical gain vertically stacked with a control region made of asymmetric coupled quantum wells (ACQW). The optical mode, centered on the gain region, has a small overlap also with the control region. Owing to the three terminals an electrical bias can be applied independently on both regions: on the laser for producing optical gain and on the ACQW for tuning the energy of the intersubband transition. This allows the control of the optical losses at the laser frequency as the absorption peak associated to the intersubband transition can be electrically brought in and out the laser transition. By using this function a laser modulation depth of about 400 mW can be achieved by injecting less than 1 mW in the control region. This is four orders of magnitude less than the electrical power needed using direct current modulation and set the basis for the realisation of electrical to optical transducers.
我们展示了一种用于调制分布反馈量子级联激光器（QCL）复折射率的集成三端器件。该器件包括一个用于产生光增益的有源区，其与由非对称耦合量子阱（ACQW）制成的控制区垂直堆叠。以增益区为中心的光模式与控制区也有小的重叠。由于有三个端子，可以在两个区域独立施加电偏压：在激光器上用于产生光增益，在ACQW上用于调谐子带间跃迁的能量。这使得能够控制激光频率处的光损耗，因为与子带间跃迁相关的吸收峰可以通过电方式移入和移出激光跃迁。通过使用此功能，通过在控制区注入小于1 mW的功率，可以实现约400 mW的激光调制深度。这比使用直流调制所需的电功率小四个数量级，并为实现电光换能器奠定了基础。
