Study of Optical Bistability in Coupled Microdisks

ORAL

Abstract

Semiconductor microcavities offer unique means of controlling light-matter interactions in confined geometries, resulting in a wide range of applications in optical communications. We report bi-stable lasing in coupled GaAs microdisks with quantum wells and interface-fluctuation quantum dots in the active region. The inter-disk coupling results in mode-splitting, with the higher energy resonance persistently achieving higher mode Q ($\sim $ 4000). The bi-stability manifests in the form of hysteresis in the intensity of the coupled modes on non-uniform excitation and can be attributed to saturable absorption. This property in the lasing characteristics of coupled cavities gives us a control on the gain modulation and mode-switching and would be useful for applications in optical memories and computing, and in next generation of low-threshold optoelectronic devices.

*This work was supported by NSF.

–

Authors

  • S.N. Ghosh

    • School of Natural Sciences, University of California, Merced, CA 95344, USA
    • School of Natural Sciences, University of California, Merced, CA 95344
    • School of Natural Sciences, University of California, Merced, CA 95343

  • Y.K. Verma

    • School of Natural Sciences, University of California, Merced, CA 95344
    • School of Natural Sciences, University of California, Merced, CA 95343

  • B.B. Buckley

    • Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA

  • X. Li

    • The Pennsylvania State University
    • Materials Research Institute, Penn State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA

  • N. Samarth

    • Materials Research Institute, Penn State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA

  • D.D. Awschalom

    • University of California, Santa Barbara
    • University of California Santa Barbara
    • UCSB
    • Dept. of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara CA 93106
    • Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA
    • Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106
    • Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation, University of California, Santa Barbara, 93106
    • Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation, University of California, Santa Barbara, California

  • S. Ghosh

    • School of Natural Sciences, University of California, Merced, CA 95344, USA
    • School of Natural Sciences, University of California, Merced, CA 95343