INJECTED CARRIER GUIDED WAVE DEFLECTOR

摘要

There is disclosed an injected carrier device for deflecting a guided beam of radiation, such as the 10.6 micron beam from a conventional carbon dioxide laser. The waveguide structure comprises a lightly doped gallium arsenide thin film formed on a lower refractive index aluminum gallium arsenide substrate. Free charge carriers are selectively injected into a localized region of the film laterally displaced from the center of the path of the beam therein. Sufficient densities of carriers are injected either optically or electrically to cause the beam to deflect within the plane of the film away from the localized region. Deflection angles of the order of 1 DEG to 2 DEG and response times as short as 6 nanoseconds have been experimentally obtained with the device.