Excitability and optical pulse generation in semiconductor lasers driven by resonant tunneling diode photo-detectors
- 30 August 2013
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Optica Publishing Group in Optics Express
- Vol. 21 (18), 20931-20940
- https://doi.org/10.1364/oe.21.020931
Abstract
We demonstrate, experimentally and theoretically, excitable nanosecond optical pulses in optoelectronic integrated circuits operating at telecommunication wavelengths (1550 nm) comprising a nanoscale double barrier quantum well resonant tunneling diode (RTD) photo-detector driving a laser diode (LD). When perturbed either electrically or optically by an input signal above a certain threshold, the optoelectronic circuit generates short electrical and optical excitable pulses mimicking the spiking behavior of biological neurons. Interestingly, the asymmetric nonlinear characteristic of the RTD-LD allows for two different regimes where one obtain either single pulses or a burst of multiple pulses. The high-speed excitable response capabilities are promising for neurally inspired information applications in photonics.Keywords
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