Planar photoelastic effect for rf photonics system

Planar photoelastic effect on compound semiconductor structures has been investigated for integrated optical transmitter in rf photonics system. While our prior works emphasized the investigation of low-loss photoelastic waveguide, photoelastic waveguide modulator, and photoelastic optical splitter, the present work focuses on the attainment of high performance laser which employs the photoelastic effect for waveguiding. Planar separate- confinement, double-heterostructure, single-quantum-well photoelastic GaAs/AlGaAs lasers have been fabricated using WNi stressors for waveguiding and ion implantation for isolation. Even without bonded on heat-sinks, these planar photoelastic lasers operate continuous wave at room temperature. The lowest threshold is 29 mA for a cavity length of 178 micrometers and a stressor width of 5 micrometers . The main waveguiding mechanism of the photoelastic lasers is determined to be weak index-guiding with the beam waist in the junction plane measured at 10 micrometers behind the end- facet.© (1997) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.