Electro-absorptive and electro-optic quantum well modulators using surface acoustic wave

Abstract

The characteristics of AI03Ga7As/GaAs QW acousto-absorption and acousto-optic modulators using the interaction between Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) and quantum well (QW) optical waveguide structures are analyzed here theoretically. The QW structures are optimized by maximizing the optical confinement of modal field in the active region and the piezoelectric effect of SAW on QWs. The electric field induced by SAW reduces non-uniformly in depth, which limits in the development of high efficiency modulators, especially for devices with a large number of QWs in the active region. We present the results of the analysis of a range of QW SQW modulators using between one and 25 QWs in the active region. For devices with thin active regions, the QW structures are designed so that at the top surface strong SAW effects can be obtained while for the 25 periods structure, the QWs located at a depth of 2/3 SAW wavelength in order to obtain an uniform SAW induced electric field. The results show that the single and five QW devices are suitable for absorptive modulation and optical modulation respectively while the 25-QW modulators can shorten the modulation interaction length and thus increase modulation bandwidth. The effective index change of these devices are at least 10 times larger than the conventional surface acoustic wave devices. These results make the quantum-well modulators more attractive for the development of acousto-optic device applications.