Abstract

Stark-geometry photorefractive quantum wells^1-3 have uniformly suffered from low diffraction efficiencies, which has limited their applicability. The chief, limitation of the quantum well designs has been the Debye screening of electric fields in the electro-optic layer by defects in insulating cladding layers. We present a new, highly-efficient, all-semiconductor photorefractive quantum well design in which all the defects have been removed from the cladding layers. Output diffraction efficiencies approaching 40% have been achieved in this design, an order of magnitude greater than demonstrated in all previous designs. The new design also eliminates the need for post-growth processing, which significantly eases device fabrication.

© 1996 Optical Society of America