Electro-refractive photonic device

摘要

The various technologies presented herein relate to phase shifting light to facilitate any of light switching, modulation, amplification, etc. Structures are presented where a second layer is juxtaposed between a first layer and a third layer with respective doping facilitating formation of p-n junctions at the interface between the first layer and the second layer, and between the second layer and the third layer. Application of a bias causes a carrier concentration change to occur at the p-n junctions which causes a shift in the effective refractive index per incremental change in an applied bias voltage. The effective refractive index enhancement can occur in both reverse bias and forward bias. The structure can be incorporated into a waveguide, an optical resonator, a vertical junction device, a horizontal junction device, a Mach-Zehnder interferometer, a tuneable optical filter, etc.

主权项

1. An apparatus comprising:
a first semiconductive contact region having a first predominant carrier type; a second semiconductive contact region having a second predominant carrier type opposite to the first predominant carrier type; and an optical confinement structure that comprises two layers of the first predominant carrier type and one layer of the second predominant carrier type, wherein: the second-type layer is juxtaposed between the first-type layers and forms a p-n junction with each said first-type layer; and the first contact region contacts the first-type layers and the second contact region contacts the second-type layer such that in operation, a sufficient voltage applied across the contact regions and constituting a forward bias relative to said regions will create a forward bias across both said p-n junctions, and a sufficient voltage applied across the contact regions and constituting a reverse bias relative to said regions will create a reverse bias across both said p-n junctions.