Abstract
A novel two-staged photonic transistor with high operating speed, low switching
power and high switching gain was recently proposed. Based on the manipulation of
optical interference in an active directional coupler by optically controlled absorption
and gain, two complementary device types were conceptually evaluated through the use of
time domain technique showing ~105 times higher figure of merit compared to
conventional approaches. With the joint usage of both device types, the photonic
transistor could function as wavelength converter, pulse regenerator and logical
operator. In this work, we identify the operational regimes of the photonic transistor
that helps in reducing the footprint and operating intensities to achieve a switching
gain of at least ~2 (or 3 dB). A recently proposed theoretical framework that calculates
the spatial profiles of optical fields and complex permittivities seen by them in
photonic structures with multiple active and passive sections is utilized for the
purposes. We show that the operational intensity and wavelengths of interacting fields
in the photonic transistor must be such that ɑ00 L1>=26
and g0L2 >= 3.2 to achieve a switchinggain >=2, where
ɑ0=absorption coefficient of the short wavelength,
g0= pumped medium gain coefficient seen by long
wavelength beams, L1 = length of first stage and
L2= length of second stage .
© 2013 IEEE
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