Very few nonlinear optical materials are actually useful for high throughput all-optical devices. However, AlGaAs does satisfy all of the nonlinear optical figures of merit when used with photons of energy less than one half the semiconductor bandgap. Here we review our measurements of the pertinent nonlinear coefficients in waveguides and various device applications to all-optical switching in the communications band around 1550 nm.
Spectral broadening due to self-phase modulation has been observed for ultrashort pulses propagating through an InGaAsP optical amplifier. This is not associated with gain saturation or absorption saturation, since it can be observed at the transparency current. At transparency, the broadening and structure of the spectra are symmetrical for pulses of approximately 27 ps duration, implying that the underlying nonlinearity has a relatively fast recovery time. The associated nonlinear index coefficient n2 is estimated to be approximately −2×10−11 cm2 W−1.
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